VIRGIL CHART 

MISSIONARY- STATESMAN 




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VIRGIL C. HART: 
MISSIONARY STATESMAN 

E. I. HART, D.D. 




DR. HART AXD THE ABBOT OF MT. OMEI 



VIRGIL C. HART: 

MISSIONARY STATESMAN 

FOUNDER OF THE AMERICAN AND CANADIAN 
MISSIONS IN CENTRAL AND WEST CHINA 

BY 

E. L HART, D.D. 



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HODDER & STOUGHTON 

NEW YORK 

GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



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COPYRIGHT, 191 7, 
BY GEORGE H. DORAN COMPANY 



APR 24 1917 

PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

©CI.A460569 



FOREWORD 



Two great missions in China, of which Dr. V. C. 
Hart was the founder, testify to the comprehensive 
insight he had of China's needs, his recognition of 
her potential powers, and his appreciation of the 
forces which would free her from her age-long stag- 
nation and lift her into new life and influence. 

With the vision of a seer, the power of practical 
achievement and the faith of a man of God, Dr. 
Hart planned not only for the work of pioneer days 
but for the expansion of the work which is now so 
great a factor in influencing China to establish new 
standards and ideals in this her day of adjustment. 

In founding these missions Dr. Hart served three 
nations and two great Methodist Churches, for he 
went first as the representative of the Methodist 
Episcopal Church of the United States, and twenty- 
five years later as the pioneer and founder of the 
mission of the Methodist Church, Canada, in West 
China, one of the best organised missions in the 

[v] 



FOREWORD 



world, for in founding it Dr. Hart brought his inti- 
mate knowledge of the Chinese and his ripe experi- 
ence as a successful superintendent of the great work 
carried on by the sister Church of the United States. 

The reflex influence of Dr. Hart's work upon the 
missionary life of the home Church has done much 
in establishing an adequate home base, providing for 
the expansion of the work in China. 

We are indebted to his son, Dr. E. I. Hart, Super- 
intendent of City Missions, Montreal, Canada, for 
this life of his father whose achievements place him 
among the world's missionary statesmen. 

To the Canadian Methodists, who this year are 
celebrating the Silver Jubilee of the founding of 
the West China Mission, the book brings a special 
and timely message. One cannot read its pages 
without being impressed by the life of the man who 
won many friends among the Chinese and the love 
and esteem of his fellow- workers. This story of 
long missionary service begun in 1866 and extend- 
ing into the twentieth century, takes us through the 
years of China's awakening and tells of the part a 
great man had in bringing in China's new day. 

F. C. Stephenson. 
Wesley Buildings, Toronto, 
April, 1917. 



[vi] 



In the preparation of this biography the writer 
wishes to acknowledge his special indebtedness to 
Miss Addie Hart of Watertown, N. Y., and to the 
Rev. G. W. Woodall, D.D., of Schenectady, N. Y., 
for several years a co-worker beloved of Dr. Hart 
in Central China. Their assistance has been invalu- 
able and greatly appreciated. 



CONTENTS 



CHAPTER 




PAGE 


I 


The Call . 


13 


II 


"Fellow-Fakers True" . 


23 


III 


Outward Bound . 


31 


IV 


The First Field 


. 43 


V 


Central China 


. 53 


VI 


On Furlough .... 


. 67 


VII 


By River and Lake 


79 


VIII 


A Forward Movement 


. 91 


IX 


I Chi San .... 


, 103 


X 


The Porcelain City 


. Ill 


XI 


A Change but No Rest . 


. 123 


XII 


The Pride of the Yangtse 


, 135 


XIII 


Turned Back .... 


. 149 


XIV 


The Chinese Tartarus . 


. 163 


XV 


"The Seductive Viper!" . 


. 173 



[«: 



CONTENTS 


CHAPTER 




PAGE 


XVI 


The Re-established Mission 


. 181 


XVII 


"One Step from Heaven" 


. 199 


XVIII 


"For Canada!" 


. 215 


XIX 


The First Contingent . 


. 227 


XX 


Beginnings 


. 245 


XXI 


The Work Expanding 


. 255 


XXII 


A Bolt from the Blue . 


. 273 


XXIII 


An Appeal unto Caesar . 


. 287 


XXIV 


The Work Resumed 


. 305 


XXV 


A Visit to an Outstation 


. 319 


XXVI 


Two Eventful Years 


. 331 


XXVII 


"Worn Out" . 


. 341 



[*] 



ILLUSTRATIONS 



Dr. Hart and the Abbot of Mt. Omei . Frontispiece ^ 

PAGE 

The Old School House Near Watertown Where 

Virgil C. Hart Was Converted . . . 14r^ 

The Stella, in which Dr. Hart and His Family 
Made Many Trips on the Yangtse and 

Through the Waterways of Central China . 82 ' 

The Hospital Compound from the Yangtse River 106 ' 

Methodist Hospital, Nanking .... 106 "" 

The University of Nanking .... 140 

The Gorges of the Upper Yangtse . . . 156 

Canadian Methodist Hospital at Chengtu . . 258 '' 

Great East Street, Chengtu .... 266 

The Mission Property at Kiating . . . 280 

Dr. and Mrs. Hart and Their Daughter . . 290 

Dr. Hart Operating His Printing-Press — The 

First To Be Used in China West of Hankow 314 

The Press Building at Kiating . . . 314 

Market Day 322 

[xi] 



I 

THE CALL 



"It is decided with me. The Church calls me to go and 
I think my Heavenly Father also. I must go. You ask me 
how long. I go for life." 

Letter to Addie Gilliland, May 26th, 1865, 



THE CALL 



IT was a cold and stormy night in the winter of 
1854. The wind was piling high the snow 
drifts in the fence corners and quickly filling in the 
foot-tracks along the road, while a man and a boy, 
with heads bent low to meet the cutting blast, made 
their way to the "Jeffers' School House," just a few 
miles from Watertown in New York State. The 
man had called at the home of the boy to take him 
to one of a series of "protracted meetings," as they 
were then called, which he and a neighbouring farm- 
er were conducting. 

Upon arriving at the school house they lit the 
candles, put on a roaring fire in the old box-stove 
and placed a few hymn books upon the knife dis- 
figured desks. While they were engaged in these 
preparations for the service, the door would open 
and admit some faithful soul whom the storm could 
not keep away. A loud stamping of the feet at the 

[13] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



entrance, a shaking of the great coat or shawl, a 
vigorous use of the broom, a few minutes by the red 
hot stove to warm the numb fingers, and then the 
newcomer took a seat upon the nearest available 
form by the fire. 

The attendance was small that night. Scarcely 
a score were present, but what the meeting lacked 
in numbers was more than made up in fervour. The 
hymns went with a swing, the prayers were earnest 
and importunate, the appeal of Alvin Hart — for he 
was the leader, came as the voice of God. So im- 
pressed was the boy with the message that at the 
close, when the opportunity was offered, he stood up 
and asked for the prayers of those present. Late 
that night when the congregation had been dismissed, 
surrounded by a few anxious friends who had re- 
mained for further prayer, he came out clearly into 
the light and gave his first testimony for Christ. 

It is said that Virgil Hart was the only convert 
brought in by the meetings. The meetings were 
considered a failure by the people. "Only one lit- 
tle boy saved!" exclaimed the critics. Little did 
those critics realise what the conversion of that one 
little boy would mean to thousands of his race. Not 
one in that community ever dreamed that he would 
some day become a great missionary and the founder 
of large and important missions in far off China. 

Virgil Chittenden Hart was the third son and fifth 

En] 




THE OLD SCHOOL HOUSE NEAR WATERTOWN 
WHERE VIRGIL C. HART WAS CONVERTED 



THE CALL 



child of Augustus Hart and his wife, Joanna Horr 
— a sister of the well-known Methodist minister, 
Elijah Horr. He was born in Lorraine, New York 
State, January 2, 1840. In 1847 his father moved 
to Pinckney in Lewis County and from there he re- 
moved seven years later to a farm near Watertown. 
How the little lad loved this farm! Frequently, 
in his letters home in after years from that strange 
land beyond the Pacific, he expressed his longings 
for a nsh in the old brook, or a hunt in the woods 
for squirrels, or a pocketful of rosy apples from the 
orchard. No boy was ever more fond of country 
life than he and until the day of his death the coun- 
try with its fresh-turned sod, its green fields and 
waving harvests, had a peculiar charm for his na- 
ture-loving soul. 

That stormy night in the old school house was 
more than a spiritual awakening to young Virgil 
Hart, it was an intellectual awakening as well. He 
became seized with a passion for study and was 
determined to secure a good education. Even when 
following the plough or in the midst of haying he 
would take an occasional glimpse of his grammar or 
his Testament, which he kept secreted in one of his 
pockets. Reading the story of David Livingstone 
led him to think seriously of a missionary career. 
He decided to prepare himself for the Christian 
ministry and much to the disgust of his Unitarian 

[15] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



father he chose to become a Methodist minister. 
Years passed before his father became fully recon- 
ciled to his son's choice, and though it was hard to 
bear his father's displeasure, yet never for a moment 
did he doubt that he was in the path of duty. His 
conscience was clear, his mind was made up, and he 
went forward though to go forward meant a hero- 
ism seldom required of a boy-candidate for the min- 
istry. It was his habit as he went about his chores 
on the farm to commit to memory passages of Scrip- 
ture or to take a text and outline a sermon. His 
brother Volney used to point to a stump in the woods 
on the old homestead where he would stand and 
preach to the trees for an audience. By picking and 
selling beechnuts for ten cents a quart he earned 
enough money to buy his first Greek grammar; by 
chopping one hundred and eighty cords of wood for 
a neighbouring farmer, he secured sufficient funds to 
begin a four years' course in the Gouverneur Wes- 
leyan Seminary, and by renting an acre of land in 
Evanston, Illinois, and selling the vegetables which 
he grew upon it, in addition to taking supply work 
in churches near the college town, he was enabled to 
meet all his expenses while attending the Northwest- 
ern University and later the Garrett Biblical Insti- 
tute, where he took his theological course, graduating 
in 1865 with the degree of Bachelor of Divinity. 
During his struggle to acquire an education Vir- 

[16] 



THE CALL 



gil became acquainted with the Honourable Willard 
Ives of Watertown, for some years a Congressman 
and a Judge: and a friendship, strong and affec- 
tionate, began which lasted till the end of life. No 
father ever took a keener interest in his son or fol- 
lowed his career with a greater sense of satisfaction 
than did Judge Ives the career of his ambitious 
young protege. More than once did this generous- 
hearted man help the young student over the hard 
places that lay between him and the accomplishment 
of his purpose. 

In the summer of 1864, while the American Civil 
War was in progress Virgil went down south and 
served with the Christian Commission. Many an 
interesting story he could tell of his experiences with 
the army and with the coloured folks in their religious 
meetings. Often these meetings among the Blacks 
would get beyond his control. Hardly had he an- 
nounced his text, sometimes, before the ebony faces 
upturned towards his would shine with an unnatural 
light, the eyes would begin to roll and the forms 
sway like the trees in a forest before the approach- 
ing storm. Great sobs would shake their frames to 
be succeeded by great laughter, then a familiar hymn 
would be started, accompanied by the clapping of 
hands and the pounding of feet, until the preacher's 
voice was completely lost in the raging storm of 
emotion. So ludicrous were some of the scenes wit- 

[17] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



nessed by the young white preacher when the coloured 
people "got happy" that he was compelled more 
than once to get down behind the pulpit and give 
vent to his long-suppressed sense of the ridiculous. 

Towards the close of his theological course, one 
morning in May, a note from Professor Kidder was 
handed to him stating that he had received an ear- 
nest appeal from one of the bishops of the Metho- 
dist Episcopal Church asking for two young men 
from the Institute to go that year as missionaries to 
China. After a conversation with Professor Kidder 
that day he decided to offer himself as a candidate. 
India had been in his thoughts for several years, but 
now the needs of China with its teeming millions 
seemed more urgent. Just after graduation in June, 
1865, he received word from the Missionary Secre- 
taries in New York of his appointment to Foochow, 
China, and on July the sixteenth following, in 
Jamestown, N. Y., at the annual meeting of the 
Erie Conference, he was ordained both Deacon and 
Elder, under the Missionary Rule, by Bishop Baker. 

Before his appointment to the foreign field efforts 
were made by some of his friends to keep him in 
the home work. They urged that it was a great pity 
to have a man of such parts go and bury himself 
in a heathen land like China. A little charge in 
Brickton, near Evanston, to whom he had minis- 
tered with much acceptance for a year and a half, 

[18] 



THE CALL 



pressed him to reconsider his decision to become a 
missionary and promised to raise his salary to a thou- 
sand dollars if he would remain with them. A dis- 
tinguished committee from his Alma Mater waited 
upon him and offered him a lectureship in Hebrew 
and Greek — subjects in which he had coached a num- 
ber of the students during his college course as well 
as taught in the classes during the absence of the 
professor. But tempting and flattering though these 
calls were to remain in the Occident the call of the 
Orient was stronger. To the Orient he went and 
never once did the shadow of a doubt cross his mind 
in regard to the wisdom of his decision. In China 
he found an opportunity and a reward more ample 
and more satisfying than anything he would ever 
have found in the United States. He chose well 
and God's blessing which maketh rich followed the 
choice. 

What a specious plea was that which his well- 
meaning friends advanced that if he went to China 
his talents would be wasted; that he was too good 
a man to send to the foreign field. There are many 
in our churches to-day who cherish a similar opinion; 
who imagine that anybody will do for mission work 
in non-Christian lands, and so scores of men who 
have been or would be failures in the work at home 
have been sent abroad to minister to the "heathen." 
Never was there a more fatal mistake. Our work 

[19] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



in foreign lands has too often been handicapped and 
crippled by weak and inefficient men — men who 
could never acquire a knowledge of the native tongue 
so as to compel the respect of the people, and whose 
mental dullness and incapacity often made them 
the laughing stock of the subtle and philosophical 
literati, whom every missionary meets and must 
reckon with in China, Japan and India. 

Our best and most gifted men are none too good 
for the awakening East, where everything depends 
upon the character of present Christian leadership. 
If we give of our best the "Yellow FeriV will be- 
come the world's "Golden Hope." 



[20] 



II 

"FELLOW-FARERS TRUE' 



"Teacher, tender, comrade, wife, 
A fellow-farer true through life, 
Heart-whole and soul-free, 
The august father gave to me." 

R. L. Stevenson. 



II 



MOTHER" BARNES, for many years, was 
one of the most interesting and picturesque 
characters in the County of Leeds, Ontario. She 
lived in a little log house a few miles from the vil- 
lage of Athens. By many she was held in super- 
stitious awe, for she possessed in a very uncanny 
degree the gift of prescience. She had the reputa- 
tion throughout the Eastern Counties of being the 
most reliable of that most unreliable class of peo- 
ple — fortune tellers. So great an impression did she 
make upon the neighbourhood in which she lived 
that when she died a few years ago one of the large 
dailies of Toronto gave a column-long story of her 
life. 

One day in the early "Sixties," two merry-hearted 
girls still in their 'teens, just for a little fun and in 
the spirit of bravado, turned in at Mother Barnes' 
gate and asked to have their fortunes told. The 

[23] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



old lady took them, in turn, into a little room and, 
having closed the door, an act which by no means 
helped to put them at ease, began to brew some tea, 
and from the leaves clinging to their emptied cups, 
read the future. To the girl with hazel eyes and 
roguish face she said: "Within a few years you 
will meet your future husband. He is tall, with 
dark brown hair and blue eyes. At the present 
moment he is studying at a table painted blue and 
about him are many books. You will travel very 
far and have five children, four of whom will be 
sons." Incredible though it seems, every detail of 
that remarkable fortune was later verified and ful- 
filled. 

Two summers after, while on a visit to her cousin 
in Watertown, N. Y., Adeline Gilliland, the girl 
with the hazel eyes — the second daughter of John 
Gilliland and his wife, Charlotte Mansell, of Athens 
— met Virgil Hart, just home from college to spend 
a few days with his sick mother. The meeting of 
these two young people was a case of love at first 
sight. It was not many months before they were 
engaged to be married, and on August 31, 1865, 
just after Mr. Hart's ordination, the marriage was 
celebrated in the town of Brockville, the Rev. Wil- 
liam Henry Poole, D.D., a well-known Wesleyan 
divine, being the officiating minister. Never was 
there a happier union than that of this young Ameri- 

[24] 



FARERS 



can missionary and his Canadian girl-bride. Their 
married life was a perpetual honeymoon. No love 
was more cruelly tried than theirs by the frequent 
and sometimes long separations inevitable in the 
lives of foreign missionaries. No husband was ever 
more indebted to his wife than was he — and he did 
not fail to tell her, repeatedly, of his indebtedness. 
She was an helpmeet, indeed, and many of the insti- 
tutions which he was instrumental in establishing, 
such as the famous hospital and college in Nankin, 
owe their first inspiration to her. 

Hard though the lot of the foreign missionary 
may have been fifty years ago, the lot of the foreign 
missionary's wife was decidedly harder. Imagine 
the isolation, the terrible loneliness of a solitary 
white woman, dwelling for years at a stretch among 
the multitudes of a large heathen city, and rarely 
looking upon the face of a woman of the same colour 
and race. Such was the experience of Mrs. Hart 
during the early years of their missionary career. 
Is it any wonder that her parents, when they thought 
of such a life awaiting their daughter in China, were 
loath to surrender her to it and almost until the last 
moment pleaded with her determined husband to 
change his mind and remain in the work at home! 
Is it any wonder that this young girl, herself, bright 
and full of life, happy in her home and with many 
admirers and friends, hesitated for some days before 

[25] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



giving a definite answer to her ardent lover when he 
asked her to accompany him to China ! Their letters 
at this anxious time form one of the most precious 
bits of Christian romance, revealing on the one hand 
the absolute candour of the young missionary and the 
heroic stuff of which he was made, and on the other 
hand the spirit of self-sacrifice required to give an 
affirmative answer. "Addie," he writes, as he awaits 
the belated letter of his betrothed, "I asked if you 
were willing to go to China. I would take no step 
of such importance without consulting you. It is 
decided with me. The Church calls me to go — and 
I think my Heavenly Father also — I must go. You 
asked me how long. I go for life. Addie ! you know 
I love you, but if Christ calls I sacrifice all for Him. 
You did not give me any decided answer. I sup- 
pose if you were to go you must be qualified to a cer- 
tain extent. First and above all, do you love Christ 
and His cause, and are you willing to fit yourself 
as far as possible for the missionary work — a life- 
work? Can you make up your mind to leave your 
family and willingly sacrifice all for Christ"? These 
are serious questions. Weigh them and give me a 
speedy answer if possible. If you do not feel that 
you can devote yourself to this work let me know. 
I shall never urge you to go. I know how great a 
trial it will be for you, much more than for me. I 
had rather go and labour alone than take you . . . 

[26] 



contrary to choice. I guess you think I am plain. 
I know, Addie, that it is a life business and that it 
is of as much importance to you as it is to me. I 
do not wish to take you away from your friends 
and civilisation. It is hard enough for me to go, I 
can assure you. If you conclude to accept, this fall 
will probably be the time to go. Now, I have writ- 
ten a long letter, and stated plainly all I have to say. 
Decide not in regard to me merely, but in regard 
to Christ, duty and life-work. Write soon, for I 
must render an answer soon to the Missionary 
Board." 

A few days after this letter he wrote Miss Gilli- 
land, "How glad I am that you are willing to devote 
your life, not only to me, but to such a glorious work 
as is before us. Do not entertain for a moment the 
thought that it will be a work without its joys — 
for in many respects it is far beyond the appoint- 
ments of this country. I had rather have the ap- 
pointment to China as far as honour is concerned 
than a first-class appointment in New York City." 

The home-leaving of this nineteen-year-old bride 
was an unspeakably sad one. The last glimpse the 
departing daughter had of her darling mother was 
that of a tearful face and a frail, delicate form 
standing in the doorway. A wave of the hand — r 
and they never saw each other again. 



Ill 

OUTWARD BOUND 



Ill 



OUTWARD BOUND 



AN unexpected postponement of the date of their 
vessel's departure for China enabled the 
newly-wedded pair to spend a few weeks in New 
York City — the guests of Dr. David Terry, one of 
the Missionary Secretaries. An opportunity was 
thus afforded them of becoming acquainted with 
many of the leading Methodists of the city and of 
interesting some of the larger churches in the field 
to which they had been assigned. Dr. Durbin, an- 
other of the Missionary Secretaries and one of the 
most eloquent of missionary advocates, arranged for 
a farewell reception to Mr. and Mrs. Hart and to 
Mr. and Mrs. W. L. Wheeler, who were accompany- 
ing them to Foochow. Among those present at that 
reception were Bishops Janes, Harris and Foss, and 
Dr. Kidder, an old friend and teacher. 

On the morning of December 20, 1865, the little 
missionary party sailed from New York on the 

[31] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



N. B. Palmer — a fast clipper ship captained by 
a jolly but profane old tar by the name of Steele. A 
large company of friends and well-wishers gathered 
at the wharf to see them off. With waving handker- 
chiefs and many a fervent prayer, the good ship, 
with its precious freight, passed out of the harbour, 
through the Narrows and out upon the broad and 
swelling bosom of old Father Ocean. 

It was a long voyage — apart from three or four 
storms, it was a pleasant voyage. The first land 
that they saw after leaving New York was Brazil. 
So near to the coast did they come that they were 
able to watch the natives in their little fishing 
smacks lowering and raising their nets. Then they 
struck across the Atlantic, crossing the Equator with 
the thermometer ranging in the neighbourhood of 
one hundred degrees. The long, hot days in these 
southern waters were passed in reading and study 
in some shady spot upon deck or in an occasional 
game of shuffle-board or quoits. On Sundays the 
passengers and crew were gathered together and 
religious services were conducted by the mission- 
aries. Spouting whales and tumbling porpoises and 
flying fish became everyday sights. Now and then 
they would see a lonely vessel, sometimes they would 
race with one. Mr. Hart tells in his journal of 
one exciting race in which a large ship was beaten 
by fifteen miles in seven hours. Enthusiastically 
[32] 



OUTWARD BOUND 



he adds, "We pass anything that comes in sight." 
Delayed by long and aggravating calms in which 
the ship would make scarcely a mile a day, the food 
supplies became very low and the fresh water so 
scarce that each passenger and member of the crew 
were put upon an allowance of a pint a day. Glad 
were they all to round the Cape of Good Hope and 
to drop anchor in the harbour of Cape Town, South 
Africa, February 22, 1866, where fresh supplies were 
procured for the ship and all were given the chance 
to touch old Mother Earth again and stretch their 
sea-weary limbs. 

Their otherwise very pleasant stay in Cape Town 
was marred by an unfortunate mutiny. The day 
after their arrival, while the captain and most of 
the passengers were ashore, several of the crew re- 
turned to the ship very much the worse for liquor. 
So crazed and unmanageable did they become that 
they attacked and seriously injured the second mate, 
who had, by his martinet methods of discipline on 
the voyage across the Atlantic, incurred the intense 
hatred of all of the sailors. The mutineers forced 
their way into the gun-room and having armed them- 
selves with various weapons proceeded to take pos- 
session of the ship. Mr. Hart, as quickly as he 
could, hid his wife in her stateroom and warned her 
to be as quiet as possible, then hurrying away he 
went to the assistance of the first mate, who was 

[33] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



making heroic efforts to restore order. Mrs. Hart, 
in a letter describing this occurrence, says: "I re- 
mained in my stateroom as I was told, but you can 
imagine I was not very quiet in spirit, for I did not 
know what moment they might burst my door open 
and kill me. And then the thought of my husband 
trying to quiet such a mob made the few hours seem 
like an age." Mr. Hart and the first mate, who 
were popular with the sailors, were finally successful 
in persuading the mutineers to give up their weapons 
and retire to their quarters. They then dressed the 
wounds of the second mate and put him to bed. 
Upon the return of the captain the ring-leaders were 
placed in irons and the next day they and all who 
figured in the mutiny were taken ashore under a 
strong guard and put in prison. New men took their 
places and the voyage was resumed. 

Seven thousand miles of unbroken ocean lay be- 
tween them and Java Head, where they would ob- 
tain their next sight of land. After six weeks' con- 
stant sailing, one glorious day in April, they entered 
the port of Anger, Java. The spice-laden breezes 
that came from the island, the rich tropical foliage, 
the picturesque natives in their queer little boats, 
urging them to buy fruit, or monkeys, or beautifully - 
plumaged birds and curios of every description — all 
were of fascinating interest to these newcomers from 
the West. Many of the passengers went ashore at 

[34] 



OUTWARD BOUND 



Anger to take in the sights. Some of them, alas, 
took in more than the sights. A few days after leav- 
ing Anger the ship had become a floating hospital; 
several of the passengers and crew were down with 
fever which they had contracted while in port. One 
of the officers, the second mate, still weak from the 
injuries received in the Cape Town mutiny, quickly 
succumbed to the plague and was buried at sea. 

Thousands of islands, little and big, with most 
luxuriant vegetation, dotted the China Sea, through 
which the ship took her course. Some of these 
islands were surrounded by extensive coral reefs or 
beds. One day when the ship lay becalmed, Mr. 
Hart, with a few venturesome spirits, rowed nine 
miles and back to see one of these coral islands — the 
St. Barbe. Never had they seen such a sight as that 
which met their eyes as they looked down many 
fathoms deep into the clear water. Like an en- 
chanted land they could see the coral beds spread out 
beneath them, with gorgeous-coloured fish darting 
hither and thither as though they were playing hide- 
and-go-seek with one another among the wonderful 
formations. Mr. Hart, by entering the water, man- 
aged to secure some fine specimens, but at the price 
of a pair of good boots and a badly blistered body, 
due to the action of the sun and the salt water. 

In sailing through the East India Archipelago and 
off the coast of Southern China, the officers of the 

[35] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



N. B. Palmer kept a sharp lookout for pirates, 
who in those days infested these waters and were 
likely at any time to make an attack. The little 
cannon at the bow and the guns in the armory were 
kept ready for immediate use, but a kind Providence 
watched over the ship and brought it in safety to the 
desired haven. It was May 17, 1866, when our 
missionaries arrived in Hongkong and bade good- 
bye to the ship that had been their home for nearly 
six months. They were not sorry to leave it. The 
day of their landing at Hongkong, however, was a 
day never to be forgotten by one of their passenger 
friends, Miss Adele Field. She had taken the long 
voyage to marry a Baptist missionary in Siam. He 
was to meet her at Hongkong, and there the wed- 
ding ceremony was to be performed upon the arrival 
of the ship. She was in her stateroom happy as a 
girl can be in anticipation of the glad event; her 
bridal dress was ready to be put on, when just as 
the vessel came to anchor the startling message was 
brought to her that her lover was dead. He had 
died of fever in Siam a few days after she had left 
New York, months before. The tidings nearly 
broke the poor girl's heart, but with God-given 
strength she went on to Siam and for several years 
engaged in mission work. Later she went to China, 
where she became an accomplished student of the 
Chinese language, publishing a dictionary for the 

[36] 



OUTWARD BOUND 



use of foreigners. In 1892 she returned to the 
United States, where she won fame through her gifts 
as a platform speaker and a writer upon many sub- 
jects. 

Mr. and Mrs. Hart remained in Hongkong five 
days waiting for a vessel that would take them north 
to their field of labour. At last the A zaf, a little 
English steamer, appeared and embarking upon her 
they proceeded up the coast towards Foochow. Be- 
fore reaching their destination they spent a day at 
Amoy, one of the largest and most important sea- 
ports in China, where several American missionaries 
were residing and who, always glad to see some- 
body just from home, invited them to come ashore 
and spend a few hours with them. In Amoy, they 
experienced for the first time the sensations of a 
ride in a sedan chair through Chinese streets. Never 
had they witnessed such filth nor inhaled such odours 
as they did that day. So ill did Mrs. Hart become 
that she was unable to partake of the dainty lunch 
which had been prepared for them at the home of 
one of the missionaries. At Amoy they had the 
pleasure of meeting Dr. J. V. N. Talmage, a brother 
of the celebrated Brooklyn divine, who for nearly 
a half century devoted his life to the uplift of China. 

It was Sunday morning, May 27, when the Azaf 
arrived at Pagoda Anchorage in the Min River. Rev. 
Nathan Sites, one of the members of the Methodist 

[37] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Mission at Foochow, was there to meet them with 
a houseboat and to conduct them a few miles further 
up the river to a landing place where sedans were 
waiting to take them to Foochow. Upon reaching 
Foochow they were warmly greeted by Dr. R. S. 
Maclay, the Superintendent of the Mission, and by 
all the resident missionaries. As they were helpless 
without some knowledge of the native language 
they found a home for a few months with Mr. and 
Mrs. Sites, who generously initiated them into the 
mysteries of house-keeping in China. The trials of 
house-keeping were strikingly illustrated on the first 
anniversary of their marriage. Mrs. Hart thought 
that she would like to have a ride in the afternoon 
upon the city walls as one way of celebrating the 
day. An early lunch was ordered. When the time 
came for lunch none was in evidence. The cook was 
found fast asleep in a corner of the kitchen. He 
was reprimanded and instructed to have the meal 
ready upon their return at three o'clock. At the hour 
they returned with ravenous appetites and with high 
expectations. They entered the dining room, but 
no cloth was upon the table and no savoury odours 
greeted them from the direction of the kitchen. They 
entered the kitchen and to their amazement the cook 
was discovered again in his corner sweetly and peace- 
fully oblivious to all his surroundings — he had been 
asleep ever since they had left. This was too much for 

[38] 



OUTWARD BOUND 



flesh and blood — especially of the American variety. 
What followed was sufficient to keep the drowsy 
knight of the range awake and busy, at least for the 
rest of the day. 

Mr. Sites' house was a large half- foreign and half- 
Chinese building, situated on a hill just outside the 
walls of the native city. On one side, stretching as 
far as eye could see, was a cheerful view of thousands 
of Chinese graves. While occupying this tempo- 
rary residence that famous Stork, which is at home in 
all lands, paid our young missionaries a passing visit, 
bringing to them their first-born — a son. 



[39] 



IV 
THE FIRST FIELD 



"Well may the missionary be a miser, so far as time is 
concerned. The immensity of the work and the meagreness 
of human agency! But all is of God-time, work and all! 
How to rightly improve the same is always a question. O, 
for wisdom! Direct me, Father!" 

Journal, Foochozv, August 7, 1867. 



IV 



THE FIRST FIELD 



FOOCHOW, the capital of the Province of 
Fukien, is one of the largest cities in China, 
having a population of nearly a million. Like all 
large cities in that land it is walled. The walls rise 
thirty feet in height, twelve feet in width and have 
a circuit of over six miles. This city was one of 
the five treaty ports to be opened by the Chinese 
after the "Opium War" of 1842 for purposes of 
foreign residence and trade. 

No better location could have been selected for 
the first Methodist mission in China than this old 
and important commercial centre by the sea. The 
mission was organised in the year 1847 and had as 
its founder the Rev. Judson D wight Collins, that 
man who upon hearing that the Methodist Church 
had no mission in China, asked one of the bishops to 
secure a passage for him before the mast on the first 
vessel sailing, adding, "my own strong arm can pull 

[43] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



me to China and support me after I get there." As- 
sociated with the Methodist work at Foochow have 
been such eminent and representative men as Dr. 
Isaac W. Wiley, afterwards made a bishop; Dr. 
R. S. Maclay, the founder of Methodist missions in 
Japan; Dr. Stephen L. Baldwin, who became a 
Missionary Secretary, and Dr. H. H. Lowrey, the 
founder of the North China Methodist Mission. 

It is an interesting fact that the Methodist pio- 
neers in Foochow were the first to introduce white, 
or "Irish" potatoes, tomatoes and many other vege- 
tables and fruits, thus permanently enriching the 
agricultural resources of almost every province in 
the nation and proving to the world that the mis- 
sionary is a commercial as well as a religious asset. 

Foochow, at first, was a most difficult field for 
missionary effort. It required ten years to bring in 
the first Christian convert, and the six following 
years to increase the number to one hundred. When 
Mr. Hart arrived the mission had been established 
nineteen years and was making gratifying progress 
with its day and boarding schools, its admirably 
situated street chapels, its substantial city churches 
and its multiplying outside appointments. At the 
annual meeting of the mission, held in 1867, Dr. 
Maclay, the Superintendent, reported that the total 
membership at that time was four hundred and fifty- 
four, being an increase of one hundred and eighty- 

[44] 



THE FIRST FIELD 



two over the previous year. To-day the Foochow 
mission has become the Foochow Conference, and 
the membership is no longer reckoned in the hun- 
dreds, but in the thousands. 

Just as soon as Mr. Hart was settled in his new 
home he began the study of the Chinese language. 
Every morning at six o'clock found him with his 
native teacher deeply engrossed in those mysterious 
characters which have been the despair of many a 
foreigner. Probably there is no language so hard 
to master as the Chinese language. It has broken 
the heart of more than one missionary. A slight 
change in inflection will make a different word and 
many a foreign beginner has been put to the blush 
by his ignorance of these tricks of pronunciation. 

The story is told of a missionary who one da}^ 
came out into his courtyard and wanted a flag, so 
he called to his "boy" at the upstair window, 
"Throw down my flag." The boy made some an- 
swer, which he did not understand and did not move. 
Again came the command, "Throw down my flag," 
and again the boy hesitated. "Do you hear me^"' 
the man roared. Then the boy in despair turned to 
the man's wife, who was also in the room, "He tells 
me to throw you down into the courtyard." The 
missionary was using the word for wife instead of 
that for flag. 

To add to its difficulties the Chinese language 

[45] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



has neither alphabet nor grammar. The only thing 
that corresponds to an alphabet as a foundation to 
build upon or a system to work by is the Table of 
Radicals consisting of two hundred and fourteen 
strokes or combinations of strokes of the pen. One 
or more of these radicals enters into every character 
or word of the language and facilitates their arrange- 
ment into dictionary form. While the letters of 
our alphabet are the symbols of sounds, the Chinese 
characters are the symbols of ideas. The language 
is supposed to contain about fifty thousand charac- 
ters, but the knowledge of from five to ten thousand 
constitutes a good working vocabulary. The mem- 
ory is the chief faculty that is brought into play in 
the acquirement of the language. The better mem- 
ory one has, the better success he will usually have 
as a student. It is astonishing what memories some 
of the Chinese literati possess. It is said that if 
the Classics of Confucius or Mencius were de- 
stroyed there are a million men in the land who can 
reproduce them from memory. 

Mr. Hart was a born linguist. He applied him- 
self with such assiduity to the study of the language 
and made such progress in it that in less than nine 
months after his arrival in Foochow he was able to 
conduct the prayers in the Boys' School, and in one 
year he was able to preach to the people without 
making many, if any, very serious breaks. In fact, 

[46] 



THE FIRST FIELD 



he had become so proficient in the use of the native 
tongue that the Superintendent of the mission put 
him in charge of a small suburban church. In his 
diary of September 5, 1867, he writes, "Chinese is 
becoming a great pleasure to me." 

Like all foreign missionaries who are ambitious 
to become scholars in the Chinese language and thus 
exert a greater influence among the educated classes, 
Mr. Hart, for many years — indeed even to his last 
year in China, never dispensed with the aid of the 
most able teacher that he could procure. A certain 
part of each day when at home, and sometimes when 
on a long journey by boat, was religiously reserved 
for study with his teacher. In this way he was en- 
abled in his long missionary career to accomplish 
much in translating English works into Chinese. 
For more than ten years a cultured Chinaman by 
the name of Tai was his tutor, a man whom the 
missionary had the satisfaction of leading to Christ 
and baptising. Perhaps no native was better loved 
by Mr. Hart than this tall, courteous, dignified 
scholar. The regard was mutual, and between the 
two there existed the tenderest ties of friendship. In 
after years when the venerable Tai was dying, it 
was his old missionary friend that he longed to see. 
His wish, though it meant many miles of travel, was 
gratified, and Mr. Hart was able to afford the lonely 

[47] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



old man comfort and strength as he went down into 
the Valley of the Shadow of Death. 

But to return again to those early days in Foo- 
chow. Little did the young missionary realise that 
during his short residence of a little over a year in 
that place when he was applying himself so indus- 
triously to the study of the language, he was pre- 
paring himself, in the providence of God, for a larger 
field of service. 

For some time the Missionary authorities in 
America had been contemplating opening up work in 
Central China, particularly in the great and wealthy 
Province of Kiangsi, and though Mr. Hart was 
only twenty-seven years of age and one of the more 
recent arrivals, yet he was considered by the Mis- 
sion as the right man to superintend this responsible 
undertaking. On the twelfth of November, 1867, 
we find these words in his journal, "A few days 
change one's plans and prospects considerably. We 
expect to leave shortly for Shanghai on our way to 
KiuKiang. A new era in our life! New responsi- 
bilities! New hopes! New avenues for thought! 
New objects for prayer! Oh, for faith, unyielding 
faith! My soul longs for close alliance with God!" 

The story of the Central China Mission is the 
story of the answer to this fervent outburst. God 
gave His servant faith and wisdom. Each step in 
the new undertaking was made cautiously; each bit 

[48] 



THE FIRST FIELD 



of work was done thoroughly; prayer breathed 
through it all. So well were the foundations of the 
new mission laid that Dr. Daniel Curry, at the an- 
nual meeting of the Missionary Board in New York, 
in 1882, when the appropriations for Central China 
were under consideration, and some members of the 
Board had demurred at granting such a large sum, 
declared that the whole appropriation should be 
granted because he believed that the work was the 
best founded of any of our China missions. 



[49] 



V 
CENTRAL CHINA 



CENTRAL CHINA 



CENTRAL CHINA, which Mr. Hart was asked 
to open for the Methodist Episcopal Church, 
to use his own words, was "the greatest, most popu- 
lous and richest field ever offered to a church." 

It was a field two hundred and fifty miles wide 
and seven hundred miles long, situated in the most 
fertile valley to be found on the globe and support- 
ing a population of nearly a hundred millions. From 
west to east it is intersected by the mighty Yangtse 
River and from north to south by the Grand Im- 
perial Canal, the longest canal in the world. It 
embraces the whole Province of Kiangsi and large 
portions of the Provinces of Kiangsu, Ngan Hwei 
and Hupeh. Three great provincial capitals and 
hundreds of cities, large and small, invite the con- 
secrated effort of the Christian missionary. The 
language of the whole district is Mandarin — the 
official language of China, which is no unimportant 

[53] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



consideration to the missionary, for he can go from 
one extremity of the field to the other and be 
equally well understood. Six large cities in Cen- 
tral China present themselves to the Christian states- 
man as possessing exceptional strategic value as cen- 
tres for missionary operations. They are Chinkiang, 
Nanking, Wuhu, KiuKiang, Nan Chang Foo and 
Hankow. All of these cities, save one, it was Mr. 
Hart's good fortune to see opened under his super- 
intendency, with a strong mission established in each. 

KiuKiang was the first of these strategic points 
to be entered. It is a city of over one hundred 
thousand people, five hundred miles up the Yangtse 
from Shanghai, near the mouth of the Poyang Lake, 
one of the largest lakes in the country. It has been 
a treaty port ever since the last war with England in 
i860. 

Some are of the opinion that it would have been 
better had Mr. Hart gone one hundred and fifty 
miles further up the river and commenced work at 
Hankow, which is to-day, with its more than a mil- 
lion of population and its great and multiplying in- 
dustries, fast becoming the Chicago of the East. 
But Mr. Hart could not foresee fifty years ago the 
future growth and importance of Hankow, besides 
KiuKiang is undoubtedly more convenient than 
Hankow as a mission centre, for it commands a bet- 
ter access to the vast interior districts of China. 

[54] 



CENTRAL CHINA 



In coming to KiuKiang the young superintendent 
found a small community of about thirty English 
and Americans, chieny connected with the Consular 
and Customs service, who were occupying a conces- 
sion of land facing the river, just outside the west- 
ern walls of the city. These foreigners had built a 
beautiful little church which they called "St. 
Paul's." They were quite proud of their church, 
but they were not quite so proud of their rector, who 
was a young Englishman more interested in spirits 
than in souls. Of late he had disappointed his con- 
gregation several times on Sundays by reason of his 
excesses on Saturdays. Much to the surprise of the 
newly arrived Methodist missionary, he was invited 
to conduct the services in St. Paul's, a duty which 
he discharged with great acceptance for nearly twen- 
ty years. He was glad of the opportunity afforded 
him, not only to serve the foreign community in 
spiritual things, but to keep up his pulpit work in 
English. 

Mr. Hart was the first Protestant missionary to 
reside in KiuKiang. He found upon his arrival 
three Christian Chinese whom he requested to meet 
him in his room the next Sunday afternoon when 
he read the Scriptures with them and had prayer. 
These three men constituted the nucleus of his new 
mission. Shortly after, a place was rented where 

[55~\ 



VIRGIL C. HART 



their growing numbers could worship and where a 
Sunday School could be conducted. 

Our missionary ever realised the necessity of em-- 
phasising the educational work in the evangelisation 
of the Chinese, and particularly in those neighbour- 
hoods where the anti-foreign sentiment was strong. 
One of the first things that he did in coming to the 
new field was to organise a day school. He had 
seven pupils at the opening, which number was in- 
creased in a few days to fourteen. This he consid- 
ered a very fair beginning. But the school was not 
allowed to proceed without opposition. "Some evil 
men," he writes, "tried hard to break up the school; 
told the parents that we would whip the children, 
cut out their eyes, etc. Then the people raised ob- 
jections to my visiting the school so often, and the 
native teacher, himself, proposed to me that I leave 
off going there for at least a week. My reply was, 
'I will go the more. You shall see me and know me, 
then I trust you will not fear me.' And this I have 
done with good effect. The idea of a missionary 
hiring a house and employing a teacher and not be 
permitted to visit the place ! A missionary is obliged 
to contest every foot of ground in China. Not an 
advance without a contest." 

One day an intelligent-looking young Chinaman, 
dusty and footsore with travel, appeared at the mis- 
sionary's door. Upon being invited to enter he told 

[56] 



CENTRAL CHINA 



a most interesting story. He said that he had just 
come from a large city in the neighbouring Province 
of Hupeh, the city of Kwangtsi, many miles away. 
Yonder in that city were a hundred men who were 
anxious to learn the Christian doctrine. A year 
or so before, two copies of the New Testament and 
four or five other Christian books had come into 
their hands. Some of their number journeyed to 
Hankow on business and while there heard about 
"the doctrines." So interested were they in what 
they had heard that they were anxious to have a 
missionary come and teach their people. They had 
heard of the foreign teacher in KiuKiang, so he was 
sent to ask him to come. Would he come ? Would 
he come? No man with the love of souls in his 
breast could refuse such a request, however long and 
hard the journey might be. As it was near the end 
of the week the young messenger was asked to stay 
in the missionary's home until Monday, when he 
would return with him to his people. In the mean- 
time the visitor profited by the Sabbath services. 
Early on Monday morning Mr. Hart, with the young 
man as a guide, started on his first country trip 
in China. At every stopping place on the way he 
improved the time by conversations, preaching and 
distributing books and tracts. It was sundown on 
the third day before they reached their destination. 
They passed the night in a large Buddhist temple, 

[57] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and what a night it was ! As they entered the sacred 
precincts of the temple, a number of the priests 
advanced to meet them and falling upon their knees 
proceeded to worship the missionary. He rebuked 
them for their idolatry and told them to worship 
the God of all men. While partaking of his supper 
in the temple, large crowds, who had heard of his 
arrival, gathered to see him. They spoke of him 
to one another with the greatest respect and ad- 
dressed him as "Mu Si" or Great Foreign Teacher! 
After the supper he held a sort of religious levee 
and to all who wished to hear he explained the car- 
dinal truths of Christianity. Mr. Hart discovered 
that the head priest of the temple had given up the 
worship of idols and was trying in weakness and in 
much darkness to worship the true God. It was a 
memorable night. His heart was full of joy at what 
he had seen and heard, and promising to return with- 
in a few weeks and rent a place in the city for Chris- 
tian services, the next day he said good-bye and 
started for home. He was accompanied by three 
men who thirsted to know more of the truth. They 
spent the Sabbath in the mission at KiuKiang and 
returned to their homes the following Monday, eager 
to bring their fellow-citizens into the larger light 
that had dawned upon them. 

During his first year in Central China Mr. Hart 
made five long journeys from KiuKiang into the 

[58] 



CENTRAL CHINA 

farther interior, preaching and disposing of religious 
books, exploring the territory, opening up little 
chapels or preaching places. Sometimes in these 
journeys he was accompanied by Rev. E. S. Todd, 
who had recently arrived from the United States 
to become his associate — a reenforcement which he 
gladly welcomed, for the work of the mission was 
already beyond the strength of one man. These trips 
into the interior were by no means holiday jaunts, 
for travelling in China and travelling in America 
or Europe are two different propositions. Sometimes 
the missionary goes by sedan chair, which soon be- 
comes tiresome to an active man; sometimes by na- 
tive boat, which is more comfortable, and sometimes 
— when he cannot help it — by wheel-barrow, which 
is the quintessence of discomfort. Often the mis- 
sionary prefers to walk to any of the already de- 
scribed modes of transportation. Accompanying him 
is a coolie or two to carry his stock of food and bed- 
ding and supplies of books. No hotel worthy of the 
name awaits him when night approaches. If he 
be doomed to such a resort as a Chinese inn he prays 
that his sleep may be deep and sound so that he may 
be completely oblivious to the filth, the vermin, the 
restless rodents, the street noises, the incessant chat- 
ter of the people in the inn and the inquisitive crowd 
who peek through the cracks in the door or in the 
partition to catch a glimpse of the "foreign devil." 

[59] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



In writing of one of his experiences in a Chinese 
hotel, Mr. Hart says : "It is bad enough to have the 
front of a room border upon the drains and the 
coolies' restaurant while the sides open into opium 
dens filled with naked smokers, but to have a huge 
pig-sty at the back and be separated from a score 
of pigs merely by a gaping board partition of half 
an inch thickness, and then have one's bed close 
against aforesaid partition, is enough to make a 
strong-minded man quail at the nocturnal prospect. 
Even the best rooms in the first-class hotel are often 
none the worse for a little cleansing. In one of these 
the proprietor was sent for in haste. He came, 
bowed and placed himself in an attitude to receive 
our commands. You may imagine his consterna- 
tion when asked to bring a load of mud, and plaster 
up the star-shaped holes all around the reception 
hall, and a load of lime to sprinkle over the floors 
and central courtyard. A young man came and filled 
up the holes; the lime was brought and we made it 
the serious business of an hour to see that every 
inch of the courtyard was sprinkled. The mud floor 
of the great hall was so damp that it readily absorbed 
several siftings. As a last resort mats were secured 
for the worst spots that remained — mats new and 
old, inhabited with colonies of living and dead fleas 
and unmentionable vermin — and feeling uncertain 

[60] 



CENTRAL CHINA 



about their sanitary condition we liberally saturated 
them with lime." 

But the trials of an itinerant missionary are not 
confined to a native inn at night. He has his 
troubles in the daytime as he passes through the vari- 
ous towns and cities, particularly those in which 
there is no love for the foreigner. Boys and men 
will shout insulting epithets; roughs will jostle him 
upon the street or try to pick a quarrel with his 
coolies. Now and then when he is addressing a 
crowd on the highway or seeking to distribute some 
literature in the market place, some one will raise 
the cry, "Whip the foreigner!" or "Kill the foreign 
devil!" The cry acts upon the crowd like tinder 
upon matchwood and soon the whole throng is trans- 
formed into a wild, shrieking, gesticulating mob; 
stones and sticks begin to fly, and the missionary 
and his helpers are truly thankful if they come out 
of it all with only a few bruises or hard knocks. 
Only once did Mr. Hart suffer very seriously from 
a mob and that was one day, when on horse-back, 
he was leaving a village where he had been trying 
to interest the people, and was about to cross a long 
bridge when men on either side, who had been hid- 
den, suddenly rose up and let fly a shower of stones. 
Some of these stones so injured his leg and ankle 
that he was obliged to seek the first inn and remain 
there for several days before he could resume his 

[61] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



journey. He seldom, if ever, ran away from a mob. 
More than once he faced it and endeavoured to 
reason with the leaders or to turn the laugh upon 
them, which is a most effective weapon with a Chi- 
nese crowd, for a Chinaman, though many may doubt 
it, has really a sense of humour. He has been known 
with his cane to keep an excited mob at bay, while 
he backed down a narrow side street and by piece- 
meal retreats reached the safety of his boat. Often 
when the excitement has subsided and the crowd has 
scattered he has returned to the spot where the 
trouble began just to show the people that he was 
not afraid of them and that he could not be easily 
driven from the field. Courage is admired in every 
land and many a city in China has been won by 
the display of that Apostolic spirit of boldness which 
our missionary possessed in no small degree. 

As a result of Mr. Hart's trips into the outlying 
districts near KiuKiang, several stations were estab- 
lished, such as Kwangtsi, Tsau Kia Ho, Sin Ki 
Cheng, Kung Lung, Ta Ku Tang and Wu Hsie, 
where David Hill, the great Wesleyan missionary, 
afterwards laboured with such marked success. In 
all these places during the early years of the Central 
China mission, though the number of church mem- 
bers received was not large, the number of inquir- 
ers mounted up into the hundreds. Mr. Hart was 
very careful about baptising and receiving into mem- 

[62] 



CENTRAL CHINA 



bership every one who professed to be converted and 
applied for membership. He insisted upon a strict 
probation, extending for six months or a year and, in 
some cases, still longer. Even then with this close 
watch at the door of the church, men would slip 
in who afterwards brought discredit upon the cause. 
In his journal of February 21, 1873, ne writes: 
"Yesterday it became my painful duty to expel 
Tsai Sin Tou for committing so many offences that 
it would endanger our society to keep him longer." 
As the work in KiuKiang was growing and the 
number of outlying stations increasing, the need of 
a larger staff of missionaries was imperative. In 
response to an earnest appeal by the Superintendent 
to the Home Church, the Rev. John Ing and the 
Rev. H. H. Hall were sent in 1870. The mission 
was further strengthened a little later by the com- 
ing of the Rev. Andrew Stritmatter, Rev. Albert J. 
Cook and the Rev. John R. Hykes. Messrs. Strit- 
matter and Cook did not stay long in China. After 
a few years' service ill-health compelled them to re- 
turn to America. Mr. Hykes, however, continued 
at his post for many years and proved a most re- 
sourceful companion of Mr. Hart in many an im- 
portant missionary tour. Few men possess greater 
presence of mind than does Dr. Hykes, as he is now 
called. The story is told that on one occasion when 
passing through a strange city he was attacked by a 

[63] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



mob. There seemed no way of escape. As a last 
resort to save his life, he decided to try and play 
upon the fears and superstitions of his persecutors 
— most, if not all of whom, had never seen a for- 
eigner until that day. "You call me devil," he 
said to them; "I will show you that I am a devil." 
Coolly he stood before them and proceeded to take 
out his false teeth, and lifting them up, he exhibited 
them to the astonished multitude. Scores fell back 
aghast at the act. Some terribly frightened ran 
away screaming. "Now," he continued, "I will put 
the teeth which I have taken out in your presence 
back again into my head." More people took to 
their heels. "I see," said he, "that some of you still 
need further proof of my peculiar powers. I will 
proceed now to unscrew my head." That was 
enough. Not a single soul waited to witness the 
third act. And while the mob was vanishing in 
every direction, the missionary went on his way in 
peace. 



[64] 



VI 
ON FURLOUGH 



VI 



ON FURLOUGH 



THERE is no climate in the world that appa- 
rently is more trying to foreign women than 
the climate of China. "It either kills or cures" is 
a common saying among foreign communities in 
that land. For more than a year the health of Mrs. 
Hart had been very much impaired, and a change 
of climate and scene was deemed absolutely neces- 
sary by her medical advisers or her illness would 
prove fatal. In June, 1871, Mr. Hart left for 
America with his wife and three little sons, Evans- 
ton, Edgerton and Ross. For a few months the fam- 
ily occupied a house in Watertown, N. Y., but later 
they went to Ingersoll, Ontario, where Mrs. Hart 
could be near her relatives, who had recently re- 
moved from Athens. 

The year of furlough was largely devoted by Mr. 
Hart to addressing missionary gatherings in differ- 
ent parts of the United States. He was in great de- 

[67] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



mand and met with large and interested audiences 
wherever he went. In a letter to his wife, he says, 
"The people are carried away with China." In one 
city in the West, on the day after his address, he was 
kept busy from morning until night at the parson- 
age, entertaining callers who were anxious to hear 
more about the wonderful country of which they 
had been told the night previous. At one place, 
where a returned missionary was a sight of sights, 
he was obliged to sit three times for his picture. 
The photos were to be sold among the citizens by 
the enterprising church which had brought him and 
thus help to swell the missionary treasury. At Evans- 
ton, his old college town, he met with a magnificent 
reception from the faculty and the students and 
had the opportunity of addressing them at two dif- 
ferent gatherings. It was his privilege to attend the 
General Conference of the Methodist Episcopal 
Church, held in Brooklyn in May, 1872. Here he 
met missionaries from the far-flung battle lines in 
India, Japan, Africa, as well as from China. He was 
particularly impressed with the delegation from the 
Canadian Methodist Church, composed of such no- 
table worthies as Doctors Punshon, Sanderson and 
Sutherland — all princes of the pulpit and platform. 
This was his first glimpse of Dr. Alexander Suther- 
land, the great Missionary Secretary with whom in 
[68] 



ON FURLOUGH 



after years he was to have such long and intimate 
relations in the opening of West China. 

As Mrs. Hart's health had been fully restored, 
Mr. Hart returned to China in the fall of 1872. 
Six years had made marvellous changes in the prob- 
lem of transportation. In 1865, the American 
traveller, bound for China or Japan, had no rail- 
road to take him across the continent. There was 
then no Suez or Panama Canal. It meant a long and 
dangerous voyage of nearly six months around the 
Cape of Good Hope. During Mr. Hart's absence 
in the Orient a long line of steel had been laid con- 
necting New York and Chicago with San Francisco. 
Over this new line he travelled on his second journey 
to China, reaching his destination with a saving of 
sixteen weeks over his first journey. 

Before taking steamer at San Francisco he had 
time to take a side trip into Southern California to 
visit an uncle who had come West during the old 
gold-fever days. His account of this little excursion 
is quite interesting and gives one a glimpse of life 
in the Far West in those early pioneer days. One 
hundred and thirty miles by train brought him to 
Oaklands. From Oaklands he was obliged to "stage 
it" for forty miles. The fare asked was four dol- 
lars. The stage was an antiquated and dilapidated 
affair drawn by four horses. There were four pas- 
sengers besides himself. Number One was an old 

[69] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Northerner, who had come West in 1849 and was 
now a comfortable vine-grower with five thousand 
vines in his vineyard besides possessing large orchard 
lands. He was a "Greeley" in politics and did not 
care who knew it. Number Two was a Southerner 
— a Kentuckian by birth, and Deputy Sheriff of the 
County. He could drink any amount of raw whiskey 
and always kept a sufficient supply concealed about 
his person. He danced three nights out of every 
seven and was ever ready to take a hand in any 
friendly game of cards, and still look after the im- 
portant interests of the county. Almost every sen- 
tence was punctuated with an oath. "Good day !" 
with him was "So long!" A "short time" was 
"quicker than you can say God with your mouth 
open." He was a most edifying companion. Num- 
ber Three was a dark, half-breed Mexican with a 
red woollen shirt, top-boots and a cigarette. Num- 
ber Four was the Mexican's wife, a full-blooded 
"Digger" — said to be the lowest type of Indian in 
the West. A Dolly Varden shawl covered her head 
and shoulders, a dirty linen duster her body, and 
many rings her fingers. In such company as this our 
missionary found himself on that September after- 
noon. Never did he ride over so rough a road. It 
became worse as they ascended the Sierra Nevadas. 
"We went," he says, "to the side of the coach and 
back again. First the forepiece of my cap would be 

[70] 



ON FURLOUGH 

in front, then behind, one side up and then nearly 
off. The squaw would go plump against the Mexi- 
can and scowl, and off would come the Dolly Var- 
den shawl. I braced myself by putting my foot 
against the Indian woman's seat, which brought 
from her another angry scowl. Fine white dust rose 
in clouds and almost suffocated us. The driver 
showed no mercy, but drove at a furious rate, espe- 
cially down hills. I have ridden upon cars and carts ; 
upon wheelbarrows and in bad sedans, but never 
did I get such a jolting as I got that day. By the 
time the forty miles had been "staged" — and it took 
seven hours to do it — the motley little party of five 
were completely done out, with feelings as sore and 
as bruised as their poor bodies. Hardly able to crawl 
they got out at Sonora, that notorious mining camp 
of which Mark Twain speaks in his stories of West- 
ern life. 

On the last day of October, in company with sev- 
eral new missionaries for China, Mr. Hart sailed 
from San Francisco on the steamship The Great 
Republic. Twenty-five days were taken in making 
the voyage to Japan, a voyage that now can be 
made in half that time. Three days were pleasantly 
passed in sight-seeing in Yokohama and its vicinity. 
The sight which most impressed Mr. Hart was the 
great bronze image of Dibutz, twenty miles from 
Yokohama, seated upon its huge pedestal under the 

[71] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



shadow of the majestic, snow-crowned Fuji, the 
sacred mountain of Japan. As one approaches the 
image, almost hidden by beautiful foliage, a solem- 
nity seems to pervade the whole place, for this fa- 
mous old idol, the largest and grandest in the world, 
has stood there an object of veneration and worship 
for over six hundred years to myriads of faithful 
Buddhists. The image is fifty feet high and thirty-six 
feet broad. Inside of it is a miniature temple with 
altar and incense urns. Climbing up the folds of 
the god's garments which were worn smooth as glass 
by the constant stream of devotees, Mr. Hart and 
his party reached one of the great thumbs and each 
took their turn in sitting upon the thumb nail. 

On the sixth of November, after a delightful sail 
through the enchanting Japan Inland Sea, whose 
islands in beauty and number rival those of our own 
St. Lawrence, Mr. Hart arrived in Shanghai. "To- 
day," he writes, "my heart has been greatly drawn 
out in prayer that God will fit me for the work and 
grant me a blessing as my feet again touch these 
shores." One week later he was in KiuKiang sit- 
ting by his lonely fireside. The old home was very 
desolate. "It is not like home," he says in a letter 
to his wife that night, "because you, dear one, are 
not here to share it with me and I miss the little 
ones so much. Oh, that I could hear their little 
feet and kiss their roguish faces !" This was the first 

[72] 



ON FURLOUGH 



of many such separations in his long missionary 
career, every one of which entered like a dagger 
into his home-loving soul. It was a year before Mrs. 
Hart was able to join him. When she came she 
brought with her another son, who had been born 
in Canada and who was named Maynard Mansell. 

In the little missionary party which accompanied 
Mr. Hart back to China were two representatives of 
the Women's Foreign Missionary Society — Misses 
Gertrude Howe and Lucy Hoag. These two elect 
ladies inaugurated an educational work in KiuKiang, 
which has resulted in untold good to the women of 
Central China. Miss Hoag has since gone to her 
heavenly reward, but Miss Howe still toils on in 
the Yangtse valley, the best known and the best 
loved of all missionary ladies in the land. By 
many of her admirers she has been called "The Prin- 
cess Missionary of the Yangtse." 

Shortly after the arrival of these ladies in Kiu- 
Kiang they adopted two little Chinese girls, whom 
they named Ida Kahn and Mary Stone. Mary Stone 
was the daughter of one of Mr. Hart's first con- 
verts. These two girls received a most careful 
mothering by the missionaries and later were sent 
to the University of Michigan, where they in due 
time graduated in medicine after a most successful 
course. Upon their return to their native land they 
opened up medical work in KiuKiang and Nan 

[73] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Chang Foo, the capital city of the Province of 
Kiangsi. These two young ladies, through their 
great work at these important centres, have become 
the two most famous Chinese ladies in the world. 
Their skilful and consecrated hands have opened 
doors long closed to the foreign missionary. 

We cannot speak of Doctor Mary Stone without 
associating with her name that of her sister, Anna, 
from whom she received the greatest spiritual im- 
pulse of her life. Anna was one of the most beau- 
ful of Christian girls. God gave her the gift of song 
and faithfully and well did she use that gift in His 
service. There are thousands of people in the 
United States and Canada who can recall the spell 
that this little Chinese maid cast over them at some 
missionary gathering. She was one of the most in- 
teresting figures at the Student Volunteer Conven- 
tion in Toronto in 1902, and attracted marked at- 
tention. On Sunday night during the convention 
week, she accompanied Dr. Hart to the Dunn Ave- 
nue Methodist Church and sang a solo during the 
service. She sang that hymn which then was new, 
the refrain of which is : 

"And I shall see Him face to face, 
And tell the story — saved by grace." 

So sweetly and so sympathetically did she sing 
this hymn that there was hardly a dry eye in the 

[74] 



ON FURLOUGH 

great congregation. A prominent member of the 
church turned to a friend in the next seat when she 
had concluded, and with emotion said: "That one 
song has repaid me for all that I have done for for- 
eign missions," — and he had done much. Here 
before him was a concrete example of what the grace 
of God could do for heathen womanhood. Three 
years later Anna Stone graduated from an American 
College and returned to China as an evangelist, but 
her term of active service was very short. She over- 
taxed her strength and God called her to Himself. 
She now sees Him of whom she sang so sweetly that 
night in the Toronto church, "face to face." 

Bishop Bashford, in his little book, "China and 
Methodism," says, "How little Dr. Hart, when 
winning the Hupeh Chinaman, and Miss Howe, 
when putting her money and influence into the train- 
ing of these Chinese girls, dreamed of the outreach- 
ing influence of that family in the second generation ! 
How little men and women at home whose sacri- 
fices are supporting workers in this great empire to- 
day foresee the splendid results which coming gen- 
erations will witness as the outcome of their hero- 
ism and self-sacrifice." 



[75] 



VII 
BY RIVER AND LAKE 



VII 



BY RIVER AND LAKE 



THE missionary in Central China is obliged to 
travel much by boat, for the country is one 
vast network of rivers and lakes. To travel by na- 
tive junks is both tedious and unsanitary, so Mr. 
Hart was early impressed with the idea of having 
a mission boat of foreign build. He seized the first 
opportunity of securing such a craft. One day in 
the middle "Seventies" he learned that an unlucky 
sportsman in Shanghai was anxious to liquidate his 
debts by the sale of his racing yacht, "The Mad 
Cap." Upon receipt of the news Mr. Hart at once 
went to Shanghai and, satisfied with the appear- 
ance of the boat, purchased it. The yacht was forty 
feet long with a beam of nine feet and could ac- 
commodate comfortably about six passengers besides 
a crew of four. It was rechristened the Stella, after 
his youngest child and only daughter. For several 
years this swift and beautiful little vessel did vali- 

[79] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



ant service, materially augmenting the usefulness of 
the missionary. 

Many a long and interesting trip was made in the 
Stella by our missionary, on the Yangtse, up the 
Poyang and other lakes and upon their navigable 
tributaries. Sometimes he was accompanied by his 
wife and family, to whom such a trip usually was 
a most welcome break to the humdrum life at a 
river port. Perhaps the longest and most mem- 
orable of all of these trips was the one to the first 
Missionary Conference held in Shanghai in May, 
1877. Every missionary in the empire was anxious 
to attend this great union gathering, for all felt that 
it was to be the beginning of a great forward move- 
ment in the evangelisation of China. Every Prot- 
estant denomination in the land was to be repre- 
sented. There would be present some of the most 
notable missionaries in the world. Men of such ex- 
perience and ability as Dr. J. Edkins, Dr. A. Wil- 
liamson, Dr. Nelson, Dr. Griffith John, Dr. W. A. 
P. Martin, Dr. Yates, J. Hudson Taylor, Dr. S. L. 
Baldwin, Dr. Lambuth and David Hill were to con- 
tribute to the programme. With such an array of 
consecrated talent it is no wonder that there was a 
strong pull at the heart strings in the direction of 
Shanghai. The Hart family in KiuKiang felt the 
pull and all wanted to go, but how? To go by 
steamer would be too great a strain upon the family 

[80] 



BY RIVER AND LAKE 

purse. A bright idea came to one of the members — 
"take the Stella!" It was five hundred miles down 
and five hundred miles back on a wide and rushing 
river, and the trip would consume many weeks, but 
all voted to run the risk, and at noon on the second 
of May every member was snugly stowed away on 
board, the larder was filled with sufficient provi- 
sions, the anchor was lifted, the sail was hoisted 
and down the river the little ship sped. For two 
days the weather was fine and the wind propitious, 
but the morning of the third day broke dark and 
ominous with a strong head wind — but let Mr. Hart 
describe that day. 

"At eight o'clock in the morning we sought shelter 
in a snug little creek for breakfast, hoping that the 
wind would cease or change to some more welcome 
quarter. When at anchor in a harbour one is apt to 
be greatly deceived as to the strength of the wind 
without. It was so with us at this time, for no 
sooner were we well out in the river when we wished 
ourselves back again. We had gained the centre of 
the river, which is two or three miles wide at this 
point, and were turning our boat for the north bank, 
when to our horror the tall mast of Oregon pine 
broke near the base and fell crashing towards the 
stern. In a moment the huge sail, already thor- 
oughly saturated with the rain, which was coming 
down in torrents, fell to the right into the river, 

[81] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



pulling the mast in that direction and consequently 
turning our boat upon its side. What was to be 
done? No other boats in sight — in the centre of 
a swift and treacherous current — and the wind fast 
assuming the proportions of a gale! We tried to 
make use of awnings to give the boat direction, but 
to no purpose. The crew, Chinese-like, lay prone 
upon the deck, moaning and clinging to what they 
could, paralysed with fear. My children were in the 
cabin — the older ones praying; my brave wife stood 
by the tiller, while I, leaping upon the cabin roof, 
ordered the crew to loose the sail from the mast and 
make it secure. We found that this helped to right 
the boat. As the storm increased the rudder became 
unmanageable and we were driven at the mercy of 
wind and wave. Imagine our delight to espy far 
down the river, approaching us, foreign cut sails and 
a black hull. We now knew that help would soon 
be within reach for those foreign-cut sails meant a 
foreign captain aboard. On she came up the river. 
We waved the Stars and Stripes and shouted, but 
there was no indication that she saw us. She came 
opposite us, sailed past us, and just as our hopes 
of attracting her attention were about gone we 
saw her prow turn and her sails drop. Now we 
knew that we were safe. Once she encircled us, but 
not near enough to throw a rope. Again she tried, 
this time with success. In a few minutes the rope 

[82] 




THE Stella IN WHICH DR. HART AND HIS FAMILY MADE MANY TRIPS ON 
THE YANGTSE AND THROUGH THE WATERWAYS OF CENTRAL CHINA 



BY RIVER AND LAKE 



was made fast and we were following in her wake. 
Our rescuer dropped us at the mouth of a little creek 
into which we poled. Our first duty was to ascertain 
the extent of our injuries and then to see if we were 
within reach of means with which the boat could be 
put into sailing condition again. Fortunately we 
found a cargo of camphor logs near by with a car- 
penter in charge. In two days we were ready to 
resume our journey down the river." 

Many great cities, some of which we shall describe 
in succeeding chapters, were passed in this trip to 
the Conference — such as Wuhu, Nanking, Chinkiang 
and Soochow. At all important points and at every 
stopping place for shelter or supplies, when at all 
possible, the missionary went ashore and preached 
to the people who would gather to hear him, or dis- 
posed of religious literature. His method of distrib- 
uting the Word in the small towns and villages that 
he might stop at is thus described: "I started for 
the street with a bundle of Commandments with 
comments — a sheet that I prepared some time ago. 
I commenced work at the first house giving each 
family a tract and a little talk with the request that 
they should paste up the tract in the house. The 
following day I took the main street and with the 
aid of a helper visited about two hundred shops and 
had considerable success. Only one man refused to 

[83] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



receive a tract and he finally took it after much 
talk." 

Owing to the accident to their boat Mr. Hart and 
his family were late in arriving at the Conference. 
Upon reaching Shanghai a furnished house, over- 
looking the Soochow Creek, was secured for a few 
weeks. As there were no such things as water- works 
or wells in private yards in those days, the foreign- 
ers as well as the natives were obliged to depend 
upon water being brought to them at regular inter- 
vals from some distant well, outside the city limits. 
The water was carried by coolies in buckets which 
were suspended from poles placed upon their shoul- 
ders and was emptied into large jars or tanks at the 
back of the house or in the courtyard. Mr. Hart 
stipulated with some coolies to bring the supply for 
his family from the famous Bubbling Well, a 
mile or so away, a most popular spring with the 
foreign community of Shanghai. But these water- 
carriers were not as honest as they tried to look when 
the bargain was being made, and it was discovered 
after some days that in order to save themselves a 
few steps on those hot days in May, they were get- 
ting no inconsiderable amount of water from the 
Soochow Creek, into which flowed the drainage of 
thousands of houses and hundreds of filthy streets 
and alleyways, and the refuse from miles of ship- 
ping. The thought of it all makes one weak! As 

[84] 



BY RIVER AND LAKE 

a result of drinking this polluted water Mr. Hart 
and two members of his family were smitten with 
malaria. For weeks and weeks they suffered, alter- 
nately shaking with chills and burning with fever. 
Though Mr. Hart for a time seemed to be cured of 
the dread disease it returned to him in later years 
and in more virulent form, to sap his vitality and to 
shorten his days. 

About five or six years after the purchase of the 
Stella, a movement was inaugurated by friends in 
the Rock River Conference of the Methodist Epis- 
copal Church in the United States, led by Mr. W. E. 
Blackstone of Oak Park, Illinois, to provide the Cen- 
tral China mission with a steam yacht, the cost of 
which would be about six thousand dollars. The 
appeal met with such general favour that subscrip- 
tions came pouring in from all quarters, and in a 
few weeks the purchase price of the yacht was se- 
cured. The yacht was built in England and sent 
out to Shanghai on the deck of an ocean liner. With 
such a vessel as the Glad Tidings — for that was 
the name given her — the missionaries were looking 
forward with happy expectations to greatly extend 
their work. But alas! diplomatic difficulties arose 
and the Chinese Government notified the American 
Consul that the little steamer would not be per- 
mitted to navigate the inland waters. The reason 
advanced was that if permission were given to the 

[85] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



missionaries to use steam yachts, the foreign mer- 
chants, and then later the native merchants — so 
much given to smuggling and cheating the customs — 
would press their claims. With multiplying steam- 
boats in different parts of the country the Govern- 
ment then would be compelled to replace their anti- 
quated police junks by vessels equally as good as 
those in the service of the missionaries and the mer- 
chants. This would naturally involve great expense. 
It was an argument, however, that did not convince 
nor satisfy the missionaries and they commenced to 
protest. For four years the Glad Tidings lay in- 
terned at the port of Chinkiang, only allowed to be 
used on official occasions by the American Consul. 

Hopeless of ever changing the mind of the 
Chinese authorities and realising that the little boat 
was gradually depreciating in value, Mr. Hart ad- 
vised her sale and with the proceeds build three com- 
fortable sailboats, each fifty feet long with a twelve- 
foot beam, fully rigged and with saloon and cabin 
accommodation for two missionaries and their wives. 
The suggestion appealed to the mission and was as 
soon as possible carried out. The Glad Tidings 
was sold and her name was given to each of three 
new vessels coupled with the names of the ports 
at which they were stationed. For more than a 
score of years these three sailing boats have been 
plying the waters of the Yangtse and its larger 
[86] 



BY RIVER AND LAKE 



tributaries. Can one imagine any more interesting 
story than that which their logs could tell in the 
thousands of miles that have been traversed in car- 
rying the Gospel message to the teeming millions of 
Central China. 



[87] 



VIII 
A FORWARD MOVEMENT 



VIII 



A FORWARD MOVEMENT 



IN an article in the Northern Christian Advocate 
of 1874, Mr. Hart says, "I frequently ascend 
hills and mountains for inspiration and to get a 
wide sweep of the broad, rich fields God in His 
providence has given us to cultivate. I go back to 
the dirty, noisy streets refreshed and encouraged to 
plod along at our daily preaching and instructing 
the dark, sin-fallen sons of Japheth. I ask, 'When 
shall our blessed work spread over these fair fields 
and humble chapels take the place of dark, loath- 
some temples, and bright, smiling messengers of 
Christ greet us where now long, grey-robed, opium- 
smoking, licentious priests drag their lazy forms to 
ask us to drink tea? When shall railroads and car- 
riage roads wind through these broad valleys carry- 
ing the riches of this great State to and from its 
metropolis? Will it be in my day?' My judgment 
says no, but my faith pierces to a higher flight and 

[91] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



says it shall be and then my heart beats quicker and 
tears stand in my eyes for China. God can do great 
things for us. Prayer, the mighty instrument given 
to us by our Divine Master sends its electric influ- 
ences before our feet and prepares our way." 

Before many years had passed our missionary was 
permitted to see the deep longing of his heart, as 
expressed in that passage, for a great work of expan- 
sion in Central China was in some measure realised. 

Mr. Hart was peculiarly a man of prayer. Every 
day, when at home, it was his custom to rise early 
and spend an hour in his study, alone, in communion 
with God. The door was locked, there must be no 
interruption. There could be heard, if one were 
anxious enough to stop and listen at the door, an 
earnest voice within, pleading for China's salvation, 
for the Divine blessing upon the workers in the field 
and upon the Home Church that it might feel more 
deeply the obligation to provide more men and 
money for foreign missions. Every week it was the 
custom of the missionaries in KiuKiang to meet 
with the Superintendent in his study-sanctuary and 
repeat the same petitions. These prayeis, made in 
the secret-place and in concert, were supplemented 
by burning appeals to the Missionary Secretaries in 
New York and through the larger organs of the 
church to the great body of Methodists in the United 
States, for evangelists, teachers, physicians and 

[92] 



A FORWARD MOVEMENT 

nurses; for dispensaries, hospitals, schools and col- 
leges. Especially did Mr. Hart plead for medical 
missionaries. In one of his appeals he exclaims, 
"Experience has taught us some valuable lessons, 
and one is that to open new stations in China and 
prosecute vigorous work there is no influence so pow- 
erful as that of the healing art. Who has not while 
preaching and teaching longed for the gift to heal 
diseases that the message might be more effectual? 
The missionary doctor is welcomed where the 
preacher and teacher are scarcely tolerated. To 
allay prejudice, to inspire confidence, to produce 
gratitude, there is nothing to compare with the heal- 
ing art. No wonder the great Moffat said, 'The 
medical missionary is a missionary and a half.' " 

In time — a long, long time it seemed to the anxious 
workers in KiuKiang, the ear of the Church in Amer- 
ica was gained, and one day the message came 
from the Mission Rooms in New York that a large 
appropriation had been granted for Central China, 
reinforcements would soon be on the way, and the 
long-desired and long-prayed-for forward movement 
might at once begin. 

The first place to be occupied in connection with 
the proposed plan of expansion was Chinkiang, a 
city of four hundred thousand at the junction of the 
Yangtse and the Grand Imperial Canal. This city 
holds a most strategic position which gives it direct 

[93l 



VIRGIL C. HART 



communication with the principal cities of most of 
the provinces of China. Fifteen miles to the north 
is the wealthy city of Yangchow, with a population 
of more than half a million. Chinkiang is one hun- 
dred and fifty miles west of Shanghai and is the 
first port at which the up-river steamers touch. Once 
it was the most strongly fortified city in the empire, 
but a few hours of shelling by some British gun- 
boats in the war of 1842 levelled its forts — an act 
which the Chinese have been very slow to forget 
and which has militated for many years against suc- 
cessful missionary work. Not long after the British 
bombardment the city suffered severely from the 
Taiping Rebellion, so severely that its population 
was reduced from half a million to twenty-five thou- 
sand. But, Phcenix-like, Chinkiang speedily rose 
from its ashes to become one of the most important 
commercial centres in the land. It is a treaty port 
and has a foreign concession with about a hundred 
resident foreigners. Two beautiful islands — Golden 
and Silver Islands — lie off the city covered with 
ancient temples and monasteries. One of the most 
interesting antiquities of the place is an iron pagoda 
of unique workmanship which was cast and erected 
over nineteen hundred years ago. A stick or a twig 
placed against the sides of the pagoda, it is believed 
by the credulous, will insure complete immunity 
from the back-ache — a form of affliction to which 

[94] 



FORWARD MOVEMENT 



the Chinkiangnese are peculiarly subject if one is to 
judge by the number of sticks to be found around 
the pagoda. 

When Mr. Hart visited Chinkiang in 1880 with 
a view to opening a mission, he found the field occu- 
pied by a lone medical missionary and his wife by 
the name of White. Dr. Robert White had been 
labouring here at his own expense for five years and 
was at this time upon the point of leaving for Europe 
better to fit himself for further work in China. This 
devoted man had established a little dispensary, and 
his wife a day school. These were transferred later 
to the care of the Methodist Mission. Rev. Marcus 
L. Taft was the first Methodist missionary to be 
stationed at Chinkiang. He was followed shortly 
afterwards by the Rev. G. W. Woodall and the 
Rev. W. C. Longden. 

Two very fine properties were purchased by the 
Superintendent for the new mission. One was upon 
Taku Hill, overlooking the city and the broad river, 
on which were erected two bungalows and later a 
three-storied building which has been used as an 
orphanage with accommodation for nearly one hun- 
dred boys. This orphanage was made possible by 
the generosity of the Christian Herald of New York 
and from year to year it has provided the necessary 
means for its maintenance. The second property 
purchased was located on the main street in the very 

[95] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



heart of the native city. It had been used as an 
opium hong "dispensing stupour, misery and death 
to the people. Now it was transformed into a 
chapel, a dispenser of joy, happiness and life." In 
this converted building services were conducted both 
for the English and the Chinese. One of the first 
to occupy the pulpit was the celebrated George 
Miiller, the founder of the great orphanage in Bris- 
tol, England ; the man who during his lifetime raised 
six millions of dollars for benevolences without ask- 
ing a single person for a dollar. "All our monies," 
he used to say, "come through prayer." Mr. and 
Mrs. Miiller visited Chinkiang and other cities on 
the Yangtse in connection with their tour of the 
world. It was Mr. Hart's privilege to entertain 
them and to show them something of the work that 
was being done by our missionaries. In his journal 
he makes this reference to this remarkable man of 
God: "He is a happy old man. While together he 
related some of his wonderful experiences in Russia 
and India. When he went to St. Petersburg as he 
was alighting from the railway carriage with his 
wife, a person called out, Is Mr. Miiller here?' 
A lady came up and invited them to her home, but 
they declined as they always stop at hotels when 
travelling so as to secure quiet which they cannot 
have at private houses. The next day the lady vis- 
ited them and again made known her wish and at 

[96] 



A FORWARD MOVEMENT 

the same time told who she was — the Princess Leven 
— but again they declined. After preaching that 
evening, the pastor of the church in which he was 
speaking told him that the Princess was in great 
distress because he would not go to her palace, and 
felt that she had grieved the Lord in some way 
because he would not accept her invitation. He 
said that she had gone to considerable expense to fit 
up apartments for them. Upon hearing this they 
concluded to go. Mr. Miiller held seventy meetings 
in her palace for the nobility and stayed eleven 
weeks. The short visit of Mr. Miiller to the Central 
China Mission was a time of great refreshing to for- 
eign and native workers and remains until this day 
a green spot in the memories of the surviving 
veterans." 

The story of the founding of the Chinkiang Mis- 
sion would be incomplete if no reference were made 
to the important part which Superintendent Hart 
had in establishing the work of the Woman's For- 
eign Missionary Society. The purchasing of prop- 
erty from the Chinese was always a difficult matter 
in those days but particularly was it so if the nego- 
tiations were to be carried on by foreign ladies which 
was contrary to Chinese etiquette. Mr. Hart was 
therefore called upon by the representatives of the 
Woman's Missionary Society for help and was able 
to render them invaluable services in protecting them 

[97] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



against extortion and fraud and in negotiating for 
land and in making contracts for buildings. In 
Chinkiang the splendid site upon which to-day 
stands the Girls' Boarding School and the Women's 
Hospital is an eloquent witness of his foresight and 
good judgment. 

Miss M. C. Robinson, who has won a lasting 
place among the educators of her sex in the East, 
through her work in Chinkiang, in a letter of reminis- 
cences written just before her death, thus speaks of 
Mr. Hart: "Never could one have taken a more 
lively interest than he did in the setting up of our 
school housekeeping. It was his unselfish prompt- 
ness that secured for us the present site of the W. F. 
M. S. When the opportunity came to buy Tine 
Tree Hollow Hill' the purchase was made in the 
nick of time — the Roman Catholics have regretted 
to this day that they were not awake enough to se- 
cure it as soon as it came into the market. At the 
call of the telegram he came at once and bargained 
for this site of all sites for a Girls' School. Our 
beautiful property is a memorial of his efficiency 
as a superintendent and of the whole-hearted inter- 
est he ever took in the W. F. M. S. part of his work. 
At the opening dedicatory exercises of the school a 
year later, Dr. Hart was again on hand to conduct 
them in his own happy way. The old Tartar gen- 
eral was asked to make a speech. Overcome with 

[98] 



A FORWARD MOVEMENT 

the honour, the war veteran threw himself upon Dr. 
Hart's neck and whispered in his ear what he wished 
to say to us. An awkward predicament for most 
persons to be in before foreign and native dignita- 
ries, but the Doctor knew how to turn it to good 
account. Returning the embrace in true Eastern 
style, the scene, though amusing, was yet a prophecy 
of the time when the Occident and the Orient will 
be as united in heart as were those two representa- 
tives in person. Our Chinese school girls whom he 
never failed to visit when in Chinkiang were always 
delighted to see him and were more responsive in 
his presence than they usually were with other vis- 
itors, for he seemed to know how to make them 
forget themselves. He loved to impart information. 
It was he who called their attention to the boot- 
like shape of Italy and its apparent attempt to give 
poor little Sicily a 'toeing off' — a fancy which has 
so fixed itself in the school-mind as to be used to 
this day by the girls of that time to their pupils of 
this time." 



[99] 



IX 
I CHI SAN— "PHEASANT HILL" 



IX 



I CHI SAN- 



THREE hundred miles from the sea coast, just 
where the Yangtse Kiang bends westward in 
a broad, graceful curve, nestling in a fertile valley 
of farm lands, lies the city of Wuhu, one of the 
chief rice exporting centres of China. The massive 
walls which surround it and the weather-worn pa- 
goda facing the anchorage were erected some fifteen 
centuries ago. For many years this now peaceful 
city was distinguished as the home of a notorious 
band of assassins called the "Koo Soo Whai" whose 
crimes have plunged more than one English and 
American home into mourning. Until recently there 
were few places in China where the anti-foreign 
sentiment was as pronounced and bitter as it was in 
Wuhu. So hostile was the attitude of the citizens, 
it is said, that life insurance companies refused to 
accept risks on foreigners who resided there. 
Though Wuhu was made an open port in 1877 

[103] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



it was not until 1881 that any missionary society 
seriously considered it as a field for aggressive work. 
In company with the Rev. M. L. Taft of Chinkiang 
Mr. Hart visited the city that year and made a 
careful investigation of conditions. He was very 
much impressed with the possibilities of the place 
and decided to recommend its immediate opening 
as a mission and the appointment of a man. A 
Chinese house on one of the principal thoroughfares 
was rented and the Rev. James Jackson and his 
wife were sent to occupy it. Mr. Hart in his letters 
often refers to the faithful work of this devoted 
couple in their lonely and most difficult field. 
"Brother Jackson," he writes, "is a steam engine to 
work. I wish we had more men like him." 

Two years after the opening of the mission at 
Wuhu an exceptionally choice site was secured just 
one mile below the steamer-landing on a high, 
wooded hill, jutting boldly out into the water, lo- 
cally known as "I Chi San" which being translated 
means "Pheasant Hill." This name was given to 
the hill because of the abundance of this particular 
variety of game in its vicinity. The country for 
miles surrounding Wuhu is known far and wide in 
the Yangtse valley as a sportsman's paradise. For- 
eigners, in the season, gather from different parts of 
the river and explore the hills and streams about the 
the city for fowl and deer and wild boar. Mr. 
[104] 



I CHI SAN 



Hart, in speaking of his first visit to Wuhu, says, 
"This plain is a perfect paradise for pheasant. We 
counted nine at once and have seen during this 
afternoon too many to enumerate. I could have shot 
them from the boat if I had had a gun with me." 

I Chi San is a landmark to be seen for many miles. 
For beauty and healthfulness of situation it is not 
to be surpassed on the Yangtse. "Pure breezes cool 
its heights in the summer and porpoises play in 
sportive gambol at its rocky feet," is the poetic 
description given of it by an enthusiastic visiting 
journalist. After the negotiations for the site had 
been closed it became known that the British consul 
had had his eye upon it for a long time and had 
been working through Chinese officials to secure it 
for the British Government as a consulate — but he 
was too late. The quick movements of our alert 
superintendent, though he was entirely ignorant of 
the consul's intentions, were too much for the red 
tape of officialism. Occupying the crest of the hill 
is now a large hospital and below it are grouped a 
Girls' Boarding School and the homes of the staff. 
Travellers, as they pass up and down the river when 
they look upon I Chi San, exclaim, "What a magnifi- 
cent property! Who lives there?" And when told 
that it belongs to the American missionaries usually 
reply in tones of surprise, "Why ! these missionaries 
live like princes." And yet not one of these critical 

[105] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



globe-trotters could be persuaded to break his jour- 
ney and take the place of one of these "princely- 
living" missionaries and spend twenty days, let alone 
twenty years, upon that solitary rock working for 
the physical and spiritual weal of the surrounding 
heathen. 

The hospital at I Chi San was the first one to be 
established in the whole of the Province of Anhui 
and it ministers to-day to a constituency of at least 
ten millions of souls. 

The names of three physicians, beloved by the 
people of Wuhu, will forever be associated with the 
hospital at I Chi San. The first is the name of Dr. 
George A. Stuart, who was in charge of the medical 
work of the mission when the hospital was built 
and who afterwards became the successful head of 
the now great university at Nanking. The second 
is the name of Dr. Chung, a native physician, who 
though he was offered by the Chinese Government 
a salary five times as large as that which he was 
receiving from the mission, to go elsewhere, refused 
that he might continue to serve the church that had 
saved him from paganism and made him what he 
was. The third is the name of Edgerton Haskell 
Hart, the second son of the Superintendent of the 
Central China Mission. 

When Mr. Hart and his family were on their way 
to the first Missionary Conference at Shanghai, in 

[106] 




THE HOSPITAL COMPOUND FROM THE YANGTSE RIVER 




METHODIST HOSPITAL, NANKING 



I CHI SAN 



the yacht Stella, in 1877, the boat stopped for a 
short time at the Wuhu landing. Mr. Hart went 
ashore and began to talk to the people that gathered 
about him and sold them some religious books. His 
two eldest sons felt that they too would like to do a 
little missionary work. They stood at the bow of 
the Stella, as it touched the bank, and soon attracted 
a larger and more curious crowd than their father. 
The little fellows talked to the people in their boy- 
ish way and disposed of quite a quantity of litera- 
ture. It is interesting to think that in less than 
twenty years after this little incident by the water- 
side at Wuhu, the younger of those two boys came 
to this city as a medical missionary, and that within 
a few minutes' walk of the spot where the Stella was 
anchored that day, he carried on a hospital work 
that made his name known throughout the empire 
as one of China's most successful and best-loved 
surgeons. 

A correspondent of the China Gazette thus speaks 
of him: "The work this man does is marvellous, yet 
he is the picture of health. He is up with the lark 
at sunrise, attends to a large Chinese hospital at 
I Chi San, going his rounds with a kind word for 
each man or woman who is sick, attends a number 
of out patients, and away to the various mission 
stations scattered over hills near by; then down into 
Wuhu where he has the whole Customs' staff, be- 

[107] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



sides the hongs and all the various ocean steamers' 
crews to attend, then a look in at the library or off 
on an errand of mercy somewhere else, perhaps miles 
away, then back again to his hospital and out to 
more homes. No one knows where he gets his meals 
as no one has ever seen him eat any food." 

Here at I Chi San Dr. Hart laboured for seven- 
teen years and here he died in 1913 of typhus fever 
contracted while administering relief to the thou- 
sands of famine and flood sufferers in the province. 
The little foreign cemetery by the river's edge holds 
the precious body over which has been placed a 
beautiful memorial stone, the gift of his many friends 
in Central China. On the stone are inscribed these 
words: "A Lover of Mankind." 

Father and son were very dear to each other in 
life. They had much in common — in disposition, in 
vision, and in service. Together now, we believe, 
they are serving their Lord in still more fruitful 
fields of toil. 



[108] 



X 

'THE PORCELAIN CITY" 



"the porcelain city" 



THE Province of Kiangsi ranks fifth in popu- 
lation among the provinces of China and sec- 
ond, if not first, in point of wealth and natural re- 
sources. It is said that it is so independent of the 
rest of China that it could be entirely cut off from 
it with little resultant suffering to the people. Five 
times as much rice is raised as is necessary to feed 
its population. It is the largest lumber mart in the 
country; grows and exports more tea than any other 
province, and is the only province in all China that 
manufactures porcelain. 

In the very centre of this central province, one 
hundred miles to the south of the Yangtse, lies the 
capital city of Nanchang, with more than a million 
inhabitants. For more than a thousand years it has 
been famous for its porcelain ware. Those who 
have travelled widely in China declare that it is its 
finest city. The streets are wider and better kept; 

Cm] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the houses are more substantial and comfortable — 
chiefly made of brick — the shops are bigger and more 
attractive than those which are found in other cities 
of the land. No city in the Orient has as many 
splendid residences. The houses of the gentry are 
fascinating with their sunlit rooms gathered around 
courts made beautiful with magnolias, chrysanthe- 
mums, rockeries and tiny lakes. 

It is not to be wondered at that Superintendent 
Hart early cast covetous eyes towards this great cap- 
ital city. In the yacht Stella he paid it several vis- 
its, preached in its streets and market-places and 
had conferences with some of the resident provin- 
cial mandarins. Not always did he receive a gra- 
cious welcome in coming to this city. Once a huge 
cable was placed across the little river which flows 
through the place to prevent his further progress, 
and while the boat was halted in mid-stream the peo- 
ple on either bank stoned the missionary, crying, 
"Kill the foreign devil!" Mr. Hart was probably 
the first Protestant missionary to enter Nanchang 
and to speak to its citizens. The Franciscans at- 
tempted, some years before, to establish a cause but 
were driven out by an angry crowd. Though our 
Superintendent received more or less gentle hints to 
stay away from Nanchang he boldly continued to 
come until the people came to the conclusion that 
the best way to deal with such a persistent soul was 

[112] 



PORCELAIN 



to let him have his own way. One day in 1881, he 
sent this message to the Mission Rooms in New 
York : "We have been able to rent a building at Nan- 
chang Foo. This we look upon as the great victory 
of the year. We have reached a centre from which 
we can operate in every direction throughout the 
province. This proud city now has a Methodist 
house and a faithful native preacher." 

In making the estimates for the Central China 
Mission for the year 1882, the Superintendent and 
his co-workers petitioned the Missionary Society for 
several men to be sent to this point. "Would to 
God," exclaims the Superintendent, "we had four 
good men for Nanchang — and one a doctor." It 
was many years before the Methodist Church could 
send such a force as the Superintendent plead for — 
and the first doctor who did come was not a man, 
as had been desired, but that gentle, little Chinese 
lady from KiuKiang, Dr. Ida Kahn, the adopted 
daughter of Miss Gertrude Howe and one of the 
first children whom Mr. Hart baptised in Central 
China. To-day, after a decade of phenomenal serv- 
ice among the people of Nanchang, this missionary 
lady has become the pervading, dominating person- 
ality of this great city. 

Mr. Fletcher S. Brockman, the General Secretary 
of the National Young Men's Christian Association 
of China, in speaking of a recent visit to Nanchang 

[113] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



says: "I was walking through the city with a 
Chinese friend who had been educated in America. 
We were pressing past the crowd — such a crowd! 
Coolies carrying bales of paper and tea, wheelbar- 
rows crowded with passengers, jinrikishas jolting 
over the uneven flag-stones, sedan chairs, for which 
way must be made because an important person 
within lent authority to the insolent bearers, mem- 
bers of the literati walking leisurely in the midst of 
the common rush, modern students from the nearby 
government colleges with books and pens, beggars 
repellant with filth and disease, cooks hastening on 
with chickens and vegetables under their arms — 
what a medley of high and low, an impression of 
infinite numbers ! 'There is not one of this crowd,' 
said my friend as the conversation reverted to Dr. 
Kahn, 'who does not know her name.' " 

The story of Dr. Kahn's life and of her coming 
to Nanchang reads like a romance. Miss Howe, 
who now makes her home with her, thus tells the 
story: "Dr. Hoag, another young woman, and I 
started a school for girls at KiuKiang forty years 
ago. The Chinese misunderstood our purpose. They 
supposed that we were trying to get children into 
the school to take their eyes out for telescope lenses, 
and their hearts out for medicine. We could get a 
few girls for the day school, but none for the board- 
ing school. As Dr. Hoag and I used to go out on 

["4] 



PORCELAIN 



the street and see little children playing, my heart 
would go out to them and I would long to break 
down this cruel prejudice and get some of the little 
girls into our school. A foreigner living in the city 
was anxious to put a girl into our school, and actu- 
ally sent a servant out on the street to buy a girl. 
There were at that time plenty of girls for sale, 
but no one was mean enough to sell a girl to have 
her heart and eyes taken out." 

"After some months one of us jokingly inquired of 
our language teacher whether he could not give us a 
girl. He replied, 'My next door neighbour has a 
little girl two months old. This is the sixth girl. 
She has never had a son, and the five girls have been 
sent out to mothers-in-law. She says she cannot 
bear to send this one to a mother-in-law. I suc- 
ceeded in getting her a betrothal in a good home, 
but when I took the cards to a fortune teller he said 
that the stars clashed, the children were not born 
favourably, and the mother must not proceed.' 
That day he saw the mother, who decided to risk us 
rather than the cruel treatment of a mother-in-law 
for her daughter. The family was a good one, 
named Con, or, as it is pronounced in this dialect, 
Kahn, direct descendants of Confucius. One must 
appreciate what are the conditions of life for a little 
girl in China to understand how the mother would 

[115] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



be willing in this way to turn over her daughter so 
completely to a stranger." 

The girlhood and youth of Dr. Kahn is replete 
with heroism and devotion of both adopted mother 
and daughter. Ida Kahn and her adopted sister, 
Mary Shi (Stone), were prepared to enter the Med- 
ical Department of the University of Michigan by 
Miss Howe, who snatched the time from her busy 
life as the head of a mission school to give the spe- 
cial training to them in everything but physics and 
chemistry. This was supplied by a friend in Kiu- 
Kiang. After graduating from the University Dr. 
Kahn went to Chicago for post-graduate work and 
later to the Tropical School of Medicine in London. 
Not satisfied with her medical degree alone, Dr. 
Kahn later returned to America for her Arts Course. 
The sacrifice, the efforts to make ends meet, the 
poverty suffered by mother and daughters, make a 
story of thrilling interest. 

In speaking of the coming of Dr. Kahn to Nan- 
chang, Miss Howe says : "It dates back to the visit 
of two reformers to my school in KiuKiang. Mr. 
Wen, a Nanchang man, who was formerly a tutor 
in the Imperial family but was dismissed by the 
Dowager Empress because of his strong sympathy 
with reform measures, and Mr. Tseo, another mem- 
ber of the Nanchang gentry. They called at my 
school to say that they wished to see my daughters 

[n6] 



PORCELAIN 



who had then just returned from America, young 
girls about twenty-three years of age. They were 
not accustomed to meeting Chinese men and de- 
clined to see them, but I finally induced them to 
see these reformers. When my daughters came in 
Mr. Wen was greatly astonished, and said it could 
not be true that such young girls had graduated in 
America and done all the wonderful things that he 
had heard of. I took the University Calendar and 
showed him their pictures and their names and 
finally convinced him. Mr. Wen and Mr. Tseo 
were then on their way to Nanking to a meeting of 
reformers. They asked that I let them have my 
daughters' diplomas, as they wanted to show them 
to the other reformers and prove what it was pos- 
sible for the Chinese women to accomplish. The 
diplomas were hung in the meeting-hall and through 
the inspiration of these diplomas an anti-foot-bind- 
ing society was organised, in which all the members 
agreed that they would not bind the feet of their 
daughters and would marry their sons only to women 
with unbound feet. When Mr. Tseo reached Shang- 
hai he had word that his wife was ill in Nanchang, 
and telegraphed asking Dr. Kahn to go to Nan- 
chang to see his wife. She found Mrs. Tseo to be 
suffering with a nervous collapse and supposed to 
be insane. She brought Mrs. Tseo to KiuKiang. 
We had no hospital, but treated her in our home. 

[117] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



She recovered. This was the beginning of Dr. 
Kahn's reputation in Nanchang, and nothing would 
satisfy the gentry of the city but to have her move 
to Nanchang." 

The spacious compound in which Dr. Kahn's hos- 
pital is situated is the gift of the Nanchang gentry. 
It is a beautiful spot not far from the government 
colleges, from which comes the fragrance of thou- 
sands of roses and chrysanthemums, for Dr. Kahn is 
a florist and a farmer as well as a physician. The 
grounds are filled with trees which she has collected 
from America, Australia, Europe and all parts of 
China. Shortly after her arrival in Nanchang a 
deputation from the gentry and literati waited upon 
her, stating that they wished to support her work 
entirely, and asking for her to withdraw from any 
connection with the church. "It is really no credit 
to you," they said, "to belong to the church. The 
people who belong to the church are rather of the 
lower class and their object in joining the church is 
to get some pecuniary good." She answered, "You 
have the impression that the Chinese who believe in 
Christ are not in earnest. I would like to tell you 
a story or two." Then she told them the story of one 
girl after another in Northern China who had suf- 
fered in the Boxer Uprising to the point of death for 
the sake of her faith, finally ending with one who 
had been burned alive. These recitals made such a 

[n8] 



PORCELAIN 



deep impression upon these men that never again 
did they repeat their request for her to disassociate 
herself from those who had made her beautiful and 
useful womanhood a possibility. 

It is many years since Mr. Hart first visited Nan- 
chang. He was not permitted to see the fruitage of 
his seed-sowing. The development of the work 
which he started is one of the marvels of Christian 
missions in China. The one little rented chapel in 
the heart of Kiangsi has become a hundred with 
an enrollment of thousands of members and in- 
quirers. 



[119] 



XI 
A CHANGE— BUT NO REST 



XI 



A CHANGE BUT NO REST 



IN the winter of 1881 Mr. Hart, whose health 
had been considerably broken by frequent attacks 
of malaria, decided to return to America and join 
his wife and family, who had preceded him earlier 
in the year and who at this time were residing in 
Ingersoll, Ontario. Nine very busy years had passed 
since he had pressed his native soil, and he was 
anxious not only to secure the physical benefit that 
might accrue to him by the change, but to use the 
opportunity to deepen the interest of the somewhat 
apathetic church at home in his great mission field. 
He returned to America by way of Europe, visit- 
ing en route his old field in Foochow where he spent 
several pleasant days at the annual meeting, renew- 
ing the friendships formed fifteen years before. 
While in London, through the good offices of Dr. 
Grattan Guinness, he got into touch with a number 
of ship-building firms and obtained estimates from 

[123] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



them for the new steam yacht, the Glad Tidings, the 
cost of which was to be defrayed by his generous 
friends of the Rock River Conference. Two weeks 
later he was with his family in Canada. As it was 
decided that his wife should not return with him to 
China, in the interests of the children, a home was 
purchased in Parkdale, a suburb of Toronto, where 
they could enjoy the best of educational advan- 
tages. 

During his furlough he took little or no rest 
though no one was ever more in need of it. He 
possessed a nature that chafed at inactivity and 
though at times he was scarcely able even to stagger 
because of malaria, yet he persisted in his attempts 
to speak and solicit funds for his work. Engage- 
ments were made for Sundays and almost every 
week night to preach and to lecture. On some Sun- 
days he spoke four times. After one such full day 
he wrote his wife, "My strength held out remark- 
ably. The iron is doing me good. Last Thursday 
I had a slight chill but took quinine regularly. I 
feel well to-day and not as much fatigued as usual 
after such a hard day. To-night I speak on the 
women of China." 

His chief anxiety while in America was to provide 
for the opening of a fourth mission upon the Yang- 
tse. Nanking, the greatest of all the cities on the river, 
a city that had lifted its proud head in defiance to 

t 12 4] 



A CHANGE BUT NO REST 

the missionary for many years, must be entered. In 
an article descriptive of Nanking which he wrote 
for the Missionary Advocate of New York, he says, 
"It is strange that so important a city should have 
been neglected by the great missionary bodies of 
China. Chinese officials employ several foreigners 
in Nanking to manufacture arms and ammunition, 
but missionary societies have erected no arsenal of 
truth to send pure doctrines to the homes and hearts 
of the people. Shall our church be represented in 
this city? It is midway from KiuKiang to the sea, 
easy of access, as all river steamers receive and land 
passengers there. It is a city that at times has con- 
trolled the interests of the vast Empire of China; 
that has led in literature; that has sent its satin to 
all parts of the land ; that has produced the only silk 
velvet of the country; that in its better days kept 
nearly one hundred thousand of its population weav- 
ing at twenty thousand looms ; whose merchants have 
journeyed far and near to dispose of its industries; 
a city that may become by its geographical position 
the future capital of a rejuvenated people. Shall 
this city which has risen so many times from its 
ashes be left to grope in pagan darkness?" 

In referring to a conversation which he had with 
Mr. W. E. Blackstone of Oak Park, Illinois, and 
who was largely responsible for the gift of the new 
steam yacht, he says, "I told him I should not rest 

[125] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



until Nanking is open. My trust is in God. The 
way will open and the work will be done." He went 
to New York and addressed the Missionary Com- 
mittee at its annual meeting, and nearly took their 
breath away by the audacious proposal that the 
Methodist Church enter Nanking with a great hos- 
pital and university. Ten thousand dollars, he told 
them, would build and equip the hospital. His 
earnest and impassioned appeal, while it did not 
result in a special grant for either the hospital or 
the university, resulted in a very marked increase in 
the appropriation that year for the general work 
of the mission. But faith and works finally had 
their reward, and just as his furlough was coming 
to an end, he received the following cheering mes- 
sage from Mr. Blackstone anent the Nanking Hos- 
pital : 

"I have forwarded to Dr. Fowler (then Mission- 
ary Secretary) the proposition to furnish the $10,000 
for the medical mission, and have requested him to 
write you at San Francisco. It is now in the hands 
of the Lord. May He direct for the best results to 
the Chinese and for His glory. The Lord bless you, 
my dear brother." 

The Nanking Hospital was now assured and a 
great burden was lifted from the Superintendent's 
heart. 

[126] 



A CHANGE BUT NO REST 

About the middle of August in 1883 Mr. Hart 
said good-bye to his family in Toronto and com- 
menced his return journey to China. In crossing 
the continent he stopped off at such important points 
as Chicago, Omaha and Salt Lake City to preach and 
lecture. He never forgot his experience in the Mor- 
mon City, for within a stone's throw of his hotel a 
double tragedy occurred and for several hours the 
city was seething with excitement. Marshall Burt, 
the Chief of Police, who also was a bishop of the 
Mormon Church, was shot dead while attempting 
to arrest a negro, and another officer was seriously 
wounded. In less than ten minutes the negro was 
lynched and his dead body dragged through the 
streets of the city, being kicked and pounded by the 
angry mob. It was a swift and gruesome dispensa- 
tion of Western justice. Mr. Hart spent several 
days in Salt Lake City and between addresses was 
enabled to see something of Mormon institutions. 
"No transient visitor," he writes, "can measure the 
effects of an evil upon the lives of a people. There 
must be some redeeming quality in the institution 
or it would die. I said to a Gentile citizen, Tt is 
strange women will be content to live under such 
conditions!' 'Not at all,' he replied, 'they are 
mostly young women from Norway and Sweden, 
soft as squash, and are led like calves to the slaugh- 
ter. The young girls and women born in Mormon 

[127] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



families don't like it at all.' " Mr. Hart attended a 
service in the old tabernacle which was crowded to 
the doors, and witnessed the ceremony of the break- 
ing of bread to the faithful, and heard a loud-voiced 
elder preach upon the fundamentals of Mormonism. 
"The sermon," he says, "from beginning to end, was 
a piece of bombast and little sense. He said one 
good thing, however, that it was certain that all 
people were the descendants of the generations be- 
fore and those to come after us would be our de- 
scendants. Bread and water were passed while the 
sermon was being preached. Even the preacher was 
stopped in the midst of his discourse to eat and 
drink." 

On the morning of September the fourth, Mr. 
Hart embarked at San Francisco, upon the steamer, 
The City of Peking. There were over six hundred 
Chinamen at the wharf pressing aboard with their 
beds and baggage. Like sheep they were driven into 
the steerage quarters. The accommodations were so 
taxed that at least a hundred of the poor fellows 
could not find sleeping places on the voyage. Every 
man had not only to show his steamship ticket as 
he came on board, but his poll-tax ticket. Although 
the people of California were apparently very 
anxious to get rid of the Chinese in those days, yet 
when he wished to return to his native land they 
taxed him for going — an inconsistency that is hard 

[128] 



CHANGE BUT NO REST 



to explain. Poor, long-suffering John Chinaman! 
Some day he may be in a position to retaliate and 
get his revenge for the indignities that have been 
heaped upon him by the political and commercial 
representatives of our much-vaunted Western civili- 
sations. What a hue and cry would be raised in 
Canada and the United States if our citizens were 
subjected upon their entrance into China to the 
same humiliations that we impose upon the incom- 
ing Chinese! In the day of his power may John 
Chinaman remember us in mercy. 

As Mr. Hart entered his stateroom on The City of 
Peking he found it decorated with roses and other 
flowers — the gifts of Mr. and Mrs. Smith of Daven- 
port, Iowa, who had been his travelling companions 
across the continent. It is interesting to note that 
Mr. Smith was the son of the author of "My Coun- 
try, 'Tis of Thee," and the brother of the author of 
"The Morning Light Is Breaking." Before parting 
with these delightful friends he was introduced by 
them to Mr. E. P. Waters, the proprietor and pub- 
lisher of the Boston Advertiser, who with his tal- 
ented wife, well-known in art circles as Clara 
Erskine Clement, were making a tour of the world. 
Mr. and Mrs. Waters were fine Christian people, 
and though they did not belong to the same denomi- 
nation as the missionary, became deeply interested 
in him and his plans for Central China. Some weeks 

[129] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



later they visited him at Chinkiang and spent a 
number of days in the study of missions at this and 
other points on the Yangtse. This friendship, begun 
upon shipboard, and renewed again on the mission 
field, lasted until death, and resulted not only in 
large personal contributions to the work, but in a 
fruitful appeal upon their return to America to the 
New England public. 

Some very amusing incidents occur on every long 
voyage at sea, and this trip across the Pacific was 
by no means one of the exceptions. There were 
twenty missionaries on board, two of whom — a 
physician and his wife — had such a horror of sea- 
sickness that a day or two before the ship sailed they 
took large doses of sodium bromide. The effect was 
something more than they ever anticipated. For 
twenty hours out of the twenty-four they were fast 
asleep and during the remaining four they went 
about in a dazed condition, subject to double sight 
and all kinds of delusions. Poor couple! they 
looked, after they had been on the ship a day or 
two, as though they had been drinking for a week, 
and naturally excited considerable attention. They 
appeared at the chief officer's table in the saloon with 
matted hair, swollen lips, eyes almost closed and 
clothes half put on. Hardly had they sat down 
when they began to nod. The husband made a 
brave effort to keep awake and tried to feed his help- 

[130] 



A CHANGE BUT NO REST 

less wife. The scene became so ridiculous that the 
officer ordered that a special table should be pro- 
vided for them in the coiner of the saloon, where, 
out of the limelight, they might nod to and feed 
each other as much as they liked without disturbing 
the equilibrium of the other passengers. It would 
have made a dog laugh to see the attentive husband 
lead his wife up on deck to one of those long chairs, 
seat her upon the foot-rest, wrap her around with a 
rug and then in all seriousness ask, "Are you com- 
fortable, now, dear'?" One day this good doctor 
staggered up to one of the passengers and said, "I 
tell you bromide is good for sea-sickness. I haven't 
been a bit home-sick yet." Mr. Hart closes his 
description of this sodium bromide fiasco with these 
words : "I conclude a man can afford to be sea-sick 
a month rather than be an idiot for a week." 

After a few days in Japan, visiting the American 
and Canadian Methodist Missions at Yokohama and 
Tokio, Mr. Hart took steamer to Shanghai and from 
thence immediately to KiuKiang where the annual 
meeting of the Central China Mission was being 
held, with Bishop Merrill, that presiding officer par 
excellence, in the chair. He met with a warm wel- 
come from his brother missionaries, foreign and na- 
tive, but no one was more glad to see him than his 
old friend and tutor, Tai Sien Sen, who gave a feast 
in his honour. It was a memorable affair. To most 

[131] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



foreigners a Chinese feast is a dreaded ordeal for it 
has anywhere from fifteen to fifty courses and the 
guest must taste of everything placed before him for 
fear of offending the host. On this particular occa- 
sion there was a duck apiece, then chicken soup, fish 
and mushrooms, boiled eggs, rice, chickens and 
mushrooms, bread, rock candy, dates, oranges, per- 
simmons, tea, etc., etc. The honoured guest of the 
evening says that before he got halfway through he 
was almost in a state of collapse. The feast lasted 
several hours and when he and the other foreigners 
present returned homewards they were as stiff as 
anacondas after a gorge of buffalo — but who could 
refuse dear old Tai who had gone to so much ex- 
pense and trouble to show his affection and respect 
for his missionary friend? 

The months that followed his return to the mis- 
sion were very busy months to the Superintendent. 
He made his home upon the Stella, and later upon 
the Glad Tidings, going up and down the river, now 
at Wuhu, now at Chinkiang, now at Yangchau, 
examining possible sites, purchasing land, making 
contracts and superintending the erection of new 
buildings. It was the most critical and the most 
fruitful period of his life in Central China. 



[132] 



XII 
THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 



XII 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 



"TTERE, Virgil! You should establish a hos- 
X A pital." To these words the great Metho- 
dist Episcopal Mission in Nanking, with its 
hospital and university and theological college and 
other important institutions, owes its first inspira- 
tion. These words were addressed by Mrs. Hart to 
her husband as they were standing upon the deck 
of a down-river steamer at the Nanking landing one 
spring day in 1881. The more Mr. Hart thought 
upon the suggestion of his wife the more convinced 
he became of the fact that Nanking possessed pos- 
sibilities for Christian work which no other city in 
China could offer. So strongly did it appeal to him 
that it finally became the crowning ambition and 
work of his superintendency in Central China. The 
realisation of his ambition, however, was not accom- 
plished without much travail of soul. His journals 
and letters for two years abound with references to 

[135] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the difficulties which he experienced in dealing with 
the wily Chinese officials who had declared that not 
a single foot of land in their city should be sold to a 
foreigner. 

Nanking was in those days the most conservative 
of Chinese cities — and the proudest — for was not 
Nanking once the largest and most cultured city in 
the empire and for eight generations the national 
capital? Was it not the site of numerous magnifi- 
cent temples and palaces and, above all, the site of 
the famous "Porcelain Pagoda" — the pride of the 
Yangtse and the glory of the nation, with its nine 
shining stories, four hundred and more feet high 
and costing three millions and a half dollars — the 
world's first skyscraper? What could the citizens of 
Nanking learn from the representatives of nations 
that were born but yesterday? What right had 
these people with no great past to come and meddle 
with their affairs and stir up the motionless pool 
of hoary customs and traditions? A curse upon the 
impudent and unsettling foreigner! No, he must 
not be allowed to get a foothold in their city. Let 
the citizen who for personal gain would part with 
his property to the "foreign devil" be considered a 
traitor and a criminal. Such was the attitude of 
Nanking's little world of officials and literati when 
Mr. Hart sought to buy a piece of land for his mis- 
sion within the sacred precincts of their city. He 

[136] 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 

knew that he was within treaty rights to buy land 
anywhere in Nanking and upon those rights he de- 
termined to stand and fight it out if it took the rest 
of his natural life. 

He suggested to his teacher — a native of Nan- 
king — one morning when they were at study in the 
cabin of the Stella that he act as a go-between in the 
purchase of some property near the South Gate. 
The teacher became terrified at the proposition and 
said that to undertake such a task would be as much 
as his life was worth. Two native Christians came 
to him secretly by night and told him of land that 
might be purchased. Two nights later he looked 
over the property and concluded to send for his 
friend Tai in KiuKiang and put him upon the track 
of the owners. After four months of quiet nego- 
tiation Tai handed the Superintendent the deeds of 
a small but valuable property on the road between 
the Arsenal and the Powder Mills. As soon as Tai 
finished his work he hurried back to KiuKiang as 
fast as he could for reasons of personal safety. Some 
months later a second and larger piece of land was 
bought near the North Gate. But the battle had 
only begun. The purchase of the land and the 
transfer of the deeds were not alone sufficient. 
These deeds must be registered and stamped by the 
Viceroy of the province and they must be presented 
to the Viceroy by the proper official. Who that 

[137] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



proper official was required months to determine. 
Some said it was the Taotai of Chinkiang; others 
said it was the Taotai of Nanking. When this 
matter was cleared up then it took months to get 
the Taotai to act. A long contest of wits followed. 
There were conferences innumerable and delays, in- 
timidations and arrest of the poor fellows who sold 
the property and their incarceration in jail; officials 
feigned illness sometimes when Mr. Hart called, or 
deliberately refused to see him. But every time the 
missionary was thus insulted he demanded and se- 
cured through the Viceroy an apology, until finally 
it began to dawn upon these mulish officials that 
they were dealing with a man who could not be 
deceived by their tricks, and who would not be 
turned aside from his purpose. At last they sur- 
rendered and were ready for serious business. At 
the suggestion of the Viceroy a compromise site was 
agreed upon which was more than acceptable to the 
Superintendent. 

In a letter to Mrs. Smith — the mother-in-law of 
Mr. Blackstone and the widow of Philander Smith 
of whom the hospital was to be a memorial — he 
writes under date of June l, 1885: 

"Praise God ! To-day the magistrates came" as 
per appointment and the land boundaries were de- 
termined and all matters connected therewith amica- 
bly settled. We get more than twice as much land 

[138] 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 

by the exchange. It is three hundred and fifty feet 
long and from one hundred and thirty to two hun- 
dred feet deep; roads on three sides and not one- 
fourth of a mile from a Confucian temple — the 
finest structure of its kind in China. The place is 
central and well adapted to our work. I have con- 
tracted for bricks, tiles, lime, stone, etc., have en- 
gaged two boss carpenters and masons and commence 
work this week. I hope, if all goes well, to turn 
ovei for the use of Dr. Beebe and associate by No- 
vember first the finest hospital in China. I can- 
not begin to tell you what a load has fallen from 
my shoulders. You cannot put yourself in my place 
and realise as I do the conflict endured to accom- 
plish this much. I feel grateful to God that no bit- 
terness has been the result. Officials and people 
speak well of me personally and now praise the 
work. ... I am going to give my summer to the 
building of the hospital, if God gives me health, and 
thereby save two thousand dollars, which, if an inex- 
perienced missionary had to superintend the work, 
would have to be given to a contractor. I am giving 
out tenders and by so doing save all that would go 
into the pockets of the contractor and of middlemen. 
By my knowledge of the language and by my experi- 
ence in building I can save in every direction. By the 
drawing I send you, you will see what a fine, sub- 
stantial building we propose to have. The architect 

[139] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



said that such a building could not be built in Shang- 
hai for less than ten thousand taels — equivalent to 
thirteen thousand five hundred dollars. I propose 
to see it built in Nanking for nine thousand dollars. 
I sent Dr. Beebe a telegram to-night stating that 
the matter was settled and for him to come next 
week and help me lay out the foundation. The 
whole mission will be joyful at the victory. Old 
Nanking, the devil's stronghold, shall yield; Christ's 
kingdom shall march on." 

But Mr. Hart's difficulties were by no means over 
when the hospital site was secured and the deeds 
stamped by the Viceroy. If ever a man was har- 
ried and tried in the erection of a building he was. 
First there was trouble with the workmen — nearly 
a hundred in all. Some of them were natives of 
another province and to the employment of these 
aliens the jealous artisans of Nanking strenuously 
objected. A fight started one day and for two or 
three hours bedlam was let loose in the vicinity of 
the hospital. Each man seized the other by the hair 
of the head ; pig-tails were pulled and twisted ; faces 
were badly disfigured and everybody was screaming 
at the top of his voice to everybody else, and at the 
same time. Hearing the uproar one of the mission- 
aries ran among them and endeavoured to restore 
order but he himself was set upon by some of the 
local carpenters, badly beaten and then dragged 
[140] 




THE UNIVERSITY OF NANKING 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 

through the streets of the city. Soldiers finally came 
to his rescue and quelled the riot. Mr. Hart, who 
at the time was at Chinkiang, was sent for and upon 
reaching the scene of the troubles immediately be- 
gan an investigation. He visited the officials of the 
city and asked for the instant punishment of the 
ringleaders of the affair and for the payment of dam- 
ages to the injured missionary. A day or so later he 
again visited the Yamen to ascertain if his demands 
had been carried out. The official in charge sol- 
emnly assured him that they had been. He said that 
the head-carpenter and one or two others had been 
punished; in fact he himself had sat up nearly the 
whole night before and watched his soldiers admin- 
ister two hundred stripes to each man. Upon hear- 
ing this Mr. Hart asked the official to send the head- 
carpenter to his place as soon as possible and he 
would pay him whatever wages were due him. That 
night, at seven o'clock, the man was brought to the 
Superintendent's residence, borne on a stretcher by 
several soldiers with a petty officer in charge. The 
man's head was bandaged and he was groaning as 
though in great agony. The soldiers tenderly lifted 
him from the stretcher and tried to seat him — but 
he could not sit down. He fell helplessly upon his 
knees and then lay limp over a chair emitting the 
most pitiful cries and groans. After reckoning up 
the man's account and paying him, Mr. Hart said 

[ho 



VIRGIL C. HART 



to the petty officer: "This man, you tell me, has 
received two hundred blows. He must be dread- 
fully hurt." "Oh, yes," replied the officer, "he is 
terribly hurt." "I am a merciful man," continued 
Mr. Hart. "I cannot see him suffer like this with- 
out doing something for his relief. Now here with 
me is a foreign physician. I shall ask him to examine 
this poor fellow." But the doctor hesitated. He 
was new to China and its ways, and feared further 
trouble if he interfered in any way. "Come," said 
Mr. Hart, "I know something of medicine myself. 
I will examine him." "But," protested the officer, 
"this man is very badly injured. He is so sore and 
bruised that he can scarcely be touched." "I shall 
be very careful not to hurt him," answered the mis- 
sionary. He ordered the carpenter to untie his 
girdle. "Oh, I cannot," he cried, "I cannot; I am so 
hurt !" "I will untie it for you," said Mr. Hart. In 
a moment the girdle was off and then the man's 
clothes — not a scar — not a scratch — not a bruise — 
not the slightest indication of a blow was found 
upon his body. It was a masterly piece of stage- 
acting and official humbug. 

But Mr. Hart's trials in connection with the super- 
vision of the hospital building did not end with the 
workmen. Men higher up gave trouble, and graft in 
a subtle and most aggravating form appeared. Even 
his native teacher whom he had so implicitly trusted 
[142] 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 

was discovered in a conspiracy and had to be dis- 
missed. The teacher had taken advantage of his 
position to systematically "squeeze" every one who 
had anything to do in supplying materials for the 
building. The man who furnished the brick had to 
pay him eighty dollars; the man who supplied the 
timber, twenty dollars; the mason eleven dollars; 
the plasterer seven dollars; the carpenter two dol- 
lars ; the man who sold the land five dollars and even 
the tattered beggar who asked alms at the entrance 
to the compound had to pay for the privilege to 
this Chinese Shylock. The Tammany Braves of 
New York in their halcyon days were but children 
in comparison with these Nanking grafters. 

Friday, May 28, 1886, was the red-letter day in 
the early history of the Nanking Methodist Mission. 
On that day the hospital was opened. Thirteen high 
Chinese Mandarins graced the occasion by their 
august presence. Other notable guests were the 
Honourable Colonel Charles Denby, the United 
States Minister to China; Mr. E. S. Smithers, the 
Consular-General of the United States at Shanghai 
and the Commander and officers of the Marion, an 
American warship. All these dignitaries came in 
uniform and were attended by the Marion's brass 
band. The opening exercises were very simple. An 
address was given by the Superintendent in Chinese 
and in English, followed by addresses from the 

[143] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



American Minister and the Consular-General. Then 
came the banquet. It was probably the first time 
that any of these Chinese mandarins had ever been 
seated at a foreign table and their attempts to con- 
form to Western customs — especially in the use of 
knives and forks — were most amusing. Imagine 
their surprise when, contrary to Chinese etiquette, 
they were placed at the table with ladies — educated 
and accomplished American ladies, on either side of 
them. It was an object lesson that could not fail 
to leave its impression, revealing the possible attain- 
ments of which their own wives and daughters were 
being deprived as well as displaying the benefits 
which their young womanhood might receive by at- 
tending the mission schools. 

The banquet was followed by a general inspection 
of the building and grounds. When all was over 
Colonel Denby said to the Superintendent, "You 
must be a happy man to have accomplished so 
much." The Superintendent modestly replied, "I 
am glad to see what I had undertaken brought to a 
close." 

Two days after the opening of the hospital, Dr. 
Beebe, the physician in charge, was called to the 
home of one of the mandarins who had been present 
at the ceremony. Two of his wives, after a bitter 
quarrel, had attempted suicide by taking large quan- 
[144] 



THE PRIDE OF THE YANGTSE 

tities of opium. Without the medical missionary's 
aid they certainly would have died. Thus the new 
hospital early began to fulfill its great and holy 
mission, and those who most opposed it at first were 
the first to benefit by its gentle ministries. 



[145] 



XIII 
"TURNED BACK' 



'Oft when of God we ask 
For fuller, happier life 

He gives us some new task 
Involving care and strife." 



XIII 



IN the spring of 1887, after four years' absence 
from his wife and family, Mr. Hart was granted 
a well-earned furlough by the Missionary Board. 
In twenty-one years he had only been in America 
twice. After a farewell dinner and a generous testi- 
monial given by his fellow-missionaries in Chinki- 
ang, which greatly touched him, he proceeded to 
Shanghai. He purchased a ticket for San Francisco, 
had his baggage put on board, when just as the vessel 
was about to leave and he was looking forward with 
boyish glee to seeing his dear ones soon, a message 
came from Bishop C. H. Fowler informing him of 
his appointment to the superintendency of the West 
China Mission, and asking him to go at once to 
Chungking and re-establish the work which had been 
so tragically brought to a close recently by anti- 
foreign riots. For awhile a hard struggle went on 
within him between his longing to go home and his 

[149] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



sense of duty to the Church, but after a few mo- 
ments upon his knees the matter was settled, his 
baggage was taken ashore, his passage-ticket was 
cancelled, and he immediately began to make prepa- 
rations for the tedious and perilous journey to 
Chungking. 

Mr. Hart was accompanied in his journey up the 
river by three congenial fellow-travellers, the Rev. 
Ernest Faber, F. R. A. S., an eminent scholar and 
naturalist and for many years a member of the Rhen- 
ish Mission of Canton ; Dr. Arthur Morley, a young 
English physician, and Rev. H. Olin Cady, a newly- 
appointed Methodist missionary to West China. 

At Hankow, six hundred and fifty miles from 
the sea, the travellers changed steamers and were 
enabled to spend a day or two with those distin- 
guished missionary veterans, Dr. Griffith John and 
David Hill. 

The steamer on which they embarked at Hankow 
was the Kiangtung, an antiquated craft that was at 
great disadvantage in contending with the swift cur- 
rent of the Upper Yangtse. It was very much like 
the decrepit Mississippi steamer of which Mark 
Twain used to speak that stopped every time it blew 
its whistle. The old boat was a source of consid- 
erable amusement or irritation according to the 
changing moods of the passengers. The distance 
from Hankow to Ichang — the last port of call for 

[150] 



steamers on the Yangtse — is one hundred and sixty 
miles as the crow flies, but on account of the great 
bends in the river it is three hundred and sixty miles. 
c The captain told us," says Mr. Hart, "that the 
trip would take from five to ten days — all depending 
upon the quantity of water and the frequency of the 
fogs. Never a word about the good or bad qualities 
of his worn-out tub. After breakfast I noticed that 
although the engine wheezed and the hull quaked 
as if the boat were doing its best, the peasants walk- 
ing on the bank easily outstripped us; and I began 
to doubt if ten days could bring us to Ichang. At 
this moment the engineer came on the front deck 
and I asked him our present rate of speed and if we 
had the prospect of continuing it. In my innocence 
I had fired a bomb and was somewhat startled by 
the pyrotechnic explosion which followed. He gave 
me a cynical look, and turned his eyes to the shore 
as if to see which way we might be going, and try- 
ing to smile, he said : 'She is doing well, — quite four 
knots. Why, last year, when the water was high 
and I had crowded her all I could I found her fall- 
ing astern when I came on deck. 5 As the engineer 
was a frank man, I could but believe him, and soon 
went to my room in disgust, drew the curtains, shut 
the door, and tried to lose myself in sleep. There is 
a story that on one occasion when the water was high 
and the Kiangtung was hugging the shore, she was 

[151] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



found to be falling astern. All hands were called 
and ordered to grasp the long grass which fringed 
the shore, and thus pull the boat along; by this 
means a point was rounded." 

The scenery above Hankow for many miles is 
most uninteresting. Here and there a green hill to 
the south rises above the plain to break the dead 
monotony. Cities and market-towns follow in quick 
succession, indicating the denseness of the population 
and the wonderful fertility of the rich alluvial lands 
behind. Fleets of heavily laden junks, in motion 
and at anchor, give an appearance of thrift rarely 
to be seen anywhere else upon the river. Especially 
is this noticeable near the mouth of the Tungting 
Lake, the largest lake in China and the centre of a 
most extensive timber traffic. Four-wheeled wagons 
drawn by water buffaloes, with wheels made of 
heavy planks, pegged together and bound by rough 
circles of iron, creak and groan dismally over roads 
that no English word can sufficiently describe. 

Forty miles below Ichang the scenery begins to 
change. Beautiful wooded hills slope to the river 
while lofty mountains tower in the dim distance. 
A little further on the hills altogether disappear and 
give place to the mountains. Not another large 
valley can be seen until the Chentu plain is reached, 
seven hundred miles to the west. It is nothing but 
mountains, mountains, small and large, with now 

[152] 



and then a white temple or pagoda or a mud farm- 
house in a narrow ravine to relieve the eye. 

Mr. Hart and his friends arrived in Ichang on a 
feast night. The shore was alive with shouting 
people, firing off loud-reporting fire-crackers. The 
river for miles was studded with red lights. Illumi- 
nated sanpans swept past the little steamer, bobbing 
up and down with the waves and circling round and 
round in the current in their efforts to light some 
poor drowned soul out of the darkness of Tartarus. 

Ichang since 1877 has been an open port. It is a 
small city of less than an hundred thousand, having 
a foreign settlement of about fifty of which number 
a dozen at least are missionaries, representing three 
or four different societies. 

Several days were passed in Ichang by Mr. Hart 
in the nerve-racking business of searching for a suit- 
able native boat to take the party up the river to 
Chungking. After much haggling as to price a 
fairly good boat was secured. It was about seventy 
feet long, eleven feet wide, flat-bottomed with four 
feet draught and thirty tons capacity, low and flat 
at the bow, high and most grotesquely carved at the 
stern. The aft half of the boat was enclosed and 
divided into two compartments, one of which was 
occupied by the "Loubon" or captain and his family, 
and the other by the foreign passengers. The bow 
half of the boat was entirely open through the day 

[153] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



but at night it was covered by bamboo matting under 
which the crew of some thirty sailors slept, wrapped 
in their cotton quilts. At the bow was a huge coil 
of bamboo rope to be used in pulling the boat over 
the rapids. On each side of the boat was an immense 
oar or yiulo, requiring from six to eight men to op- 
erate it. Then projecting over the bow about 
twenty-five feet or more was a round piece of tim- 
ber, the purpose of which was to give direction to 
the boat in negotiating the treacherous rapids — a 
sort of front rudder. 

In this strange craft our missionaries were to be 
cooped up for at least a month. When passengers 
and baggage were aboard the captain went carefully 
over the boat, examining the mast, the sails, the 
ropes, the oars and the rice-bins. Everything being 
in readiness, a chicken was killed as an offering to 
the river gods and its blood and feathers were 
smeared upon the bow, sticks of incense were burned, 
gongs were beaten, the sail was hoisted and the little 
boat moved out from the anchorage to face the un- 
certainties of eighty-five rapids. 

The glories of the Upper Yangtse are its gorges. 
The perils are its rapids. There are at least seven 
notable gorges ranging in length from four to twenty 
miles, with walls rising from fifteen hundred to three 
thousand feet and fashioned by Nature's great Ar- 
chitect into all kinds of fantastic shapes at the top. 

[154] 



The grandeur of these Yangtse gorges cannot be 
depicted with word or brush. Their precipitous 
heights are filled with geologic wonders, while from 
their thin covering of soil a myriad species of trees, 
shrubs and plants spring forth. 

The upper end of Bellow's Gorge is noted for the 
remains of works of defence and offence, made 
eighteen hundred years ago in the war between the 
Provinces of Szechwan and Hupeh. The people 
of the latter province invaded the territory of the 
former but their progress was arrested by huge iron 
cables stretched across the gorge. The iron posts 
to which they were fixed may be seen to-day. Noth- 
ing daunted by this obstruction, Menliang, the Hu- 
peh commander, drilled holes zigzag up the per- 
pendicular height seven hundred feet, in which he 
inserted wooden beams and thus made a ladder by 
which his men scaled the precipice and surprised and 
routed their enemies. These holes remain exactly as 
when drilled, six inches square and fourteen inches 
deep. Thus Wolfe at Quebec was anticipated and 
surpassed long centuries before. 

The ascent of the rapids is an experience never 
to be forgotten. It is more or less invested with 
risk and is therefore always exciting. The boat veers 
from side to side, and pitches back and forward, 
while a man sits by the cabin door beating a small 
drum as though his very life depended upon it. An- 

[155] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



other man stands at the bow and by signs and shouts 
gives directions to those on board and ashore. Half- 
naked men along the shore pull like mules on a 
rope, sometimes a thousand feet in length. They 
jump from rock to rock with the agility of squirrels. 
They creep along narrow ledges hundreds of feet 
above the water with all the skill of mountain goats. 
A man called the "whipper" follows the team of 
trackers. It is his duty at all difficult places to urge 
the men on. He carries a split bamboo stick and 
applies it to the rope at the proper time, never or 
seldom striking a man. He sometimes rushes ahead, 
kneels down and "kotows" to the team, beats the 
ground with his stick, runs back and flies along the 
line like a howling Dervisher as though he would 
flog every man, but his frantic movements end only 
in a few blows upon the taut rope and several shrill 
yells which are caught up by the team. Some of 
our college football coaches might take lessons from 
these Chinese whippers. 

There is no labour that is more arduous than 
tracking and there is no labourer in all the world that 
is worse paid than the Chinese tracker. From dawn 
to dusk these poor fellows row or pull, receiving as 
their reward enough rice to eat, a place upon the 
hard boat-floor to sleep and two dollrrs at the end 
of the trip — and yet they are the happiest of men, 
ever singing as they work. Rudyard Kipling was 

[156] 




THE GORGES OF THE UPPER YANGTSE 



TURNED 



right when he said that "the yellow clay out of 
which God made the Chinaman has much iron in it." 

A wreck on the Upper Yangtse is almost an every- 
day occurrence. Accidents are continually happen- 
ing among the long lines of slowly ascending and 
swiftly descending junks. Hundreds of lives is the 
annual toll of these treacherous waters. It is no 
uncommon thing to see a boat hanging for an hour 
in a most perilous position in the rapids. The 
trackers with swelling veins and set faces tug with 
every ounce of strength that they possess upon the 
rope to which the boat is suspended — and yet ap- 
parently in vain. Let the rope break, or a seam in 
the boat open, or a sharp, hidden rock pierce the 
bottom — and another disaster would be added to 
the long record. It is no wonder that the ignorant, 
superstitious boatman imagines that these turbulent 
waters are infested with demons, eager to drag him 
and his boat down into the deep dark abysses of the 
river. Believing this it is not surprising then to see 
him either endeavouring to frighten away these 
demons of the deep with unearthly yells, the beat- 
ing of gongs and the firing of guns and crackers, or 
attempting to propitiate them with offerings of rice 
and paper cash. 

At dangerous points along the Yangtse the 
Chinese Government has placed agents of the "Life 
Saving Association." Their boats patrol the waters 

[157] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and at their stations are to be found all such neces- 
saries as clothing, bedding, medicines and coffins. 

Only once in the long ascent of the river did Mr. 
Hart's party come near having an accident. On 
nearing Tungling Point, the skipper made a blunder. 
The swift current caught the vessel and turned it 
broadside, almost keel over, to the most dangerous 
part of the rapid. The water came pouring in 
through doors and windows. The shock was so se- 
vere that the cargo shifted to one side and every- 
things was thrown into confusion. Over went ta- 
bles, chairs, boxes, trunks, crockery and provisions. 
Doors were broken and bottles smashed. Mr. Hart's 
teacher and some of the Chinese aboard were par- 
taking of their breakfast at the time, and when 
extricated from dishes of rice and cabbage and hot 
tea they were a sight to remember. The cook-house 
was the despair of the worthy individual who pre- 
sided over it. The oven was shattered beyond all 
repair, ashes, charcoal and flour were hopelessly 
mixed. The rudder-room was nearly demolished and 
the old gilded god belonging to the captain was cast 
from his shelf of honour and was now dangling in a 
most undignified manner from the side of the boat. 
Apart from a few sprains and cuts the passengers 
and crew escaped most marvellously. 

Every three or four miles along the river our mis- 
sionaries were surprised to see white towers erected 

[158] 



in conspicuous places, called "yien-tong," which 
means "smoke towers." They were signal stations 
built six centuries before Christ. In those long ago 
days these little buildings were used for the trans- 
mission of news. In times of war signals were made 
by kindling fires in them of wolf ordure, the smoke 
of which, according to tradition, rose straight into 
the heavens. These ancient towers are religiously 
kept in repair and strange to stay still serve the Sze- 
chwanese as transmitters of news, for attached to 
them is the modern telegraph wire. 

Almost every day on this long river trip when 
their boat was waiting its turn to ascend a rapid, 
Mr. Hart and some of his friends would take walks 
along the shore or climb the steep paths of the over- 
hanging mountains. Occasionally they would de- 
part from the beaten path to botanise or study the 
geological formations. Many an interesting experi- 
ence did they have on these little excursions. 

One day they spied a lonely house on a distant 
ridge and decided to pay it a visit. Upon reaching 
the place they found two men and a boy scratching 
about among a handful of stunted vegetables and 
buckwheat. "They were so much startled at sight 
of us," says Mr. Hart, "as though beings from the 
moon had fallen before them ; but a word in Chinese 
allayed their fear, and they gradually came near to 
us. My silver watch chain excited their curiosity 

[159] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and they inquired as to its use. When they caught 
sight of the watch their wonder exceeded all bounds 
and they decided that by its aid I could see one 
thousand li — three hundred miles. When I explained 
to them that it was a watch, and in motion, they 
were most incredulous, and gave me a look that 
plainly said, 'You cannot fool us so easily.' After 
some persuasion the younger man allowed me to 
place it at his ear. It was well worth our climb to 
see the broad grin that broke over his sunburnt face 
when he heard the tick. Then the old man of sev- 
enty came up, and finally the small grandson who 
naturally listened more than once. They followed 
us as we descended the opposite side of the mountain 
and directed us to a cold spring flowing from a rock. 
When the lad observed our awkward mode of drink- 
ing, he ran to an oil tree and plucked a couple of 
large leaves from which he deftly fashioned cups. I 
then tried to shape some cups myself but with no 
success. At this the little fellow laughed and no 
doubt congratulated himself that in some things he 
could excel the man with the 'living clock.' " 



[160] 



XIV 
THE CHINESE TARTARUS 



XIV 



THE CHINESE TARTARUS 



WHERE the Upper Yangtse widens, and the 
perilous rapids are past, and the mountains 
begin to recede from the shore, is situated one of 
China's most interesting cities — the City of Fungteu, 
a place of great historical romance. The picturesque 
little mount just outside the city walls is literally 
covered with large and venerable temples, and next 
to Mount Omei in central Szechwan, is perhaps the 
greatest religious retreat in the land. A broad, foot- 
worn, sandstone road, built over a thousand years 
ago, leads by easy stages from temple to temple. In 
one temple Mr. Hart saw nine huge serpents, coiled 
to beams and dangling their heads over the wor- 
shippers. These serpents were objects of special 
homage and veneration. But the chief object of 
worship in Fungteu is Yen lo Wang, the king of the 
infernal regions, who holds in his power the destiny 
of every mortal. Before his image all kinds of offer- 

[163] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



ings are placed, such as eyes and arms and feet — all 
thank offerings for miraculous cures upon such as had 
besought his aid. In the temple which crowns the 
brow of this sacred mount is to be found something 
the like of which is to be seen nowhere else in the 
world, the permanent incarnation of a goddess — the 
wife of Yen lo Wang. Accompanied by a ragged 
troop of Taoist priests, Mr. Hart visited this unique 
shrine and heard from the lips of his garrulous 
guides the wonderful story of the goddess. 

Twelve hundred years ago in the glorious days of 
the Tang, when Buddhism was at its zenith, a fair 
maiden came to the city of Fungteu from Chungking, 
to pay her vows to the King of Tartarus. While in 
the act of worship she lost one of her beautiful ear- 
rings, exquisitely wrought in fine gold with pearls, 
emblematic at once of the maiden's purity and of 
the wealth which could purchase such ornaments. 
Her distress at this loss was great. Aided by the 
aged priest who was in attendance at the temple, she 
carefully searched for the earring but without suc- 
cess. After the maiden had left the sacred mount 
the priest found the jewel in the hand of Yen lo 
Wang, and also received a mysterious revelation to 
the effect that henceforth the fate of this lovely girl 
would be bound up with the life of the god. A 
revelation was made also to the maiden, who told 
her parents upon reaching home of her loss and of 

[i6 4 ] 



THE CHINESE TARTARUS 

how she was to become the spiritual bride of the 
god. The time of her death had been announced 
and was now near at hand. When the day ap- 
proached she was prepared by her friends for her 
death as for a wedding. She gradually became 
weaker and weaker as if passing away from disease, 
when suddenly a tempest arose, so terrific in fury, 
that the family, overcome with fright, fled from the 
house, forgetting the dying girl. When the storm 
was over imagine their surprise upon returning to the 
house to find that the maiden's body had disap- 
peared. Then they remembered her words that she 
was to be the bride of the great god at Fungteu, and 
they went immediately to his temple to see if that 
had come true. They found her body in the temple 
in the possession of the priests, who had recognised it 
by the earring in their keeping. They declared the 
body to be spiritualised flesh, which must be en- 
shrined in the temple as the wife of the god in the 
spirit world. Her friends then brought beautiful 
silk and satin robes for the goddess, and gilded her 
face to preserve it from contamination; and every 
year since that long-ago time the descendants of the 
Chens have made pilgrimages to this shrine, bringing 
richly coloured robes for the goddess, and taking 
away those of the previous year. 

The wily priests were ready to draw aside the 
curtain and show the missionary the fair creature — 

[165] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



somewhat in the manner of the priests at Rome who 
exhibit the portrait of St. Luke painted by himself. 
Mr. Hart's teacher was particularly curious to see 
her face and called for a light but the priests at that 
time became suddenly busy in looking over an illus- 
trated Gospel which the missionary had given them, 
and when the teacher continued to persist, they cut 
the exhibition short and invited their guests to visit 
the tea and wine saloons in an upper story of the 
temple. 

In this same interesting temple they entered a 
room which contained the images of two Taoist 
genii, who flourished two thousand years ago. The 
genii are seated at a rustic table, playing chess. One 
is in the act of making an important move, holding 
his hand waveringly over the board. An image of 
a ragged boy stands near with his elbow resting on 
a tree, supporting his chin with his hand, and watch- 
ing the game most intently. The story goes that this 
boy, a wood-chopper, went up into a certain moun- 
tain near by to cut wood, and found these two genii 
sitting in a grotto playing chess. One of them gave 
the boy something in the form of a date-stone. He 
became oblivious of time and is said to have watched 
the game for two hundred years or more. At last 
one of the genii suggested that it was time for him 
to return to his home; coming to himself he dis- 
covered that his clothes had rotted away, and his 

[166] 



THE CHINESE TARTARUS 

hatchet was consumed with rust. When he made 
his advent into his native village, like Rip Van Win- 
kle, he found that the world had not been asleep in 
his absence; and seeing himself a stranger, lost in 
such surroundings, he hurried back to the mountain 
and became a famous Taoist recluse, and is now 
honoured by the Chinese as a god. 

For many centuries the superstitious Chinese have 
believed that Hades or Purgatory is under or near 
this famous mount at Fungteu. The West Gate of 
the city, Mr. Hart was told, was once sealed to keep 
out the prowling evil spirits who came forth from 
their subterranean caverns to inflict injuries upon 
any who might venture to travel the roads in this 
neighbourhood. 

A legend relates that during the fifteenth century 
an official from Chungking was appointed magistrate 
of Fungteu. He came down the river with his flag 
flying, and went into port, but was amazed to find 
anchored near by, a boat similar to his own, with a 
flag of the same grade, thus announcing that the offi- 
cial on board was magistrate of Fungteu. "How 
can this be?" thought he. "Am I relieved before 
reaching my post, or has some one imposed upon 
me?" He sent his card to the other boat and re- 
quested an interview, that he might understand the 
reason of what he saw. He was politely received 
and informed that the occupant was indeed the mag- 

[167] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



istrate of Fungteu, but of the invisible city below! 
He was invited to visit Tartarus and promised to 
do so on a certain date. At the appointed time for 
the visit, the West Gate was unsealed by order of 
the magistrate, which brought forth many pro- 
tests from the citizens; but his commands were en- 
forced, and his chair-bearers and escort started upon 
what they considered a most perilous undertaking. 
They had not proceeded far beyond the gate when 
the heavens became lurid. Unseen beings pressed 
upon them and became so furious that the chair- 
bearers dropped their load and ran away in terror. 
On foot, the courageous magistrate marched to the 
cavern alone, presented his card, which was received 
by the magistrate of the nether regions. He was 
taken by the spirit-guards, blind-folded, and con- 
ducted through the dark prisons where untried spirits 
waited for punishment or release. He was led into 
the presence of the magistrate and his eyes unband- 
aged. But how changed the magistrate was now! 
How august and terrible! As he was leaving, to 
return to the upper city, the King of Tartarus made 
the reasonable request that any surplus chains he 
might have should be sent below, as his were badly 
rusted and insufficient for present uses. 

In concluding his account of his intensely inter- 
esting stay at Fungteu, our missionary says that 

[168] 



THE CHINESE TARTARUS 

the only evidence he had had of the proximity of 
Tartarus was that when he was returning to his boat, 
after distributing large quantities of religious litera- 
ture among the people, he was followed by a crowd 
of vagabonds, hooting and throwing mud and gravel. 



[169] 



XV 
"THE SEDUCTIVE VIPER' 



"On every hand are waving fields of poppy-white, pink, 
and dark-purple flowers. Beautiful sight ! But so sad to 
reflect that every head will help to kill some poor China- 
man!" 

Letter to Mrs. Hart. 



XV 



IN ascending the Yangtse from Ichang to Fung- 
teu, while Mr. Hart was deeply impressed with 
the wonders and beauties of Nature, he was more 
deeply impressed with the physical condition of the 
people. It was a revelation to him. 

"The sallow complexion of the people," he writes, 
"their emaciated forms and languid movements, at- 
tract our attention everywhere along the river. I 
do not see a beautiful face or figure, nor a rosy 
cheek; a dead leaden colour is in all faces, old and 
young, male and female. Upon the mountain sides 
are hundreds of labourers; approach these busy men 
and you will see this death-like pallor upon their 
faces. The climate seems the acme of perfection — a 
long, pleasant summer with a cool, agreeable autumn 
and bracing winter. There is plenty of food, and 
of excellent quality for China — rice, millet, wheat, 
peas, beans, corn, oils and fruits of many varieties 

[173] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



— all within the reach of the humblest. Yet there 
is a want of energy and life among the people. I 
enter a large field near a hamlet, by the side of a 
luxuriant growth of ripening wheat. The field is 
clean, not a weed visible ; but close together and four 
feet high stand stalks with large dry heads, brown 
and decaying now, for their bright flowers faded a 
month ago. These decaying stalks speak. They tell 
me why the death pallor is upon all faces, from the 
shrivelled form of age to the misshapen child sit- 
ting in the cottage door. Oh, seductive viper ! Curse 
of millions! Who shall dare to stand up in the 
presence of this fast fading, degenerating people and 
say the evil is not wide-spread and fatal?" 

Mr. Hart had seen the terrible effects of the opium 
traffic in the provinces of the lower Yangtse, but 
never had he seen anything to equal what he saw 
in the Province of Szechwan. He saw the best and 
most fertile lands in the valleys and on the hillsides 
withdrawn from the cultivation of cereals and vege- 
tables and given to the exclusive cultivation of the 
gorgeous, but poisonous, poppy. So increasingly 
great was the acreage devoted to this purpose that 
the prices of foodstuffs were rapidly rising; in fact, 
in some parts they had already reached the prohibi- 
tive stage. It is said that one-third of the opium 
produced in China, previous to the famous edict of 
1906, restricting its culture, was grown in Szechwan 

[174] 



SEDUCTIVE 



and that more than one-half of the men and about 
one-third of the women in this province were 
habitues of the deadly pipe. 

We speak of the evils of the Liquor Traffic in 
Great Britain, Canada and the United States, but 
the Opium Traffic has proved a greater curse to 
China than strong drink ever has to the countries 
mentioned. 

The opium pipe has a peculiar fascination for 
the Chinese because their lives are so bare of inter- 
est. To millions it is a relief from the dullness and 
weariness which prevail everywhere in all classes 
of society. "A month's travel by sedan chair," says 
Dr. E. A. Ross, "gave me some light on why the 
coolie hankers for his pipe. Our chair and baggage 
coolies took with them no wrap, nor change of cloth- 
ing, and eight successive days of rain brought them 
to a state of utter misery. After twelve hours of 
splashing and slipping up and down the mountain 
roads and fording swollen torrents in a cold drizzle 
under a weight of from seventy to ninety pounds 
they would come at evening utterly exhausted to a 
cheerless, comfortless Chinese inn. No fire, no cloth- 
ing save two soaked cotton garments; no bed save 
a brick kang with a ragged mat on it; no blankets. 
For supper nothing but rice and bean curd or maca- 
roni. What wonder that after eating, the poor fel- 
low curled up on the mat with the tiny lamp be- 

[175] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



side him, rolled the black bead and sucked the thick 
smoke till he passed beyond the reach of cold, dis- 
comfort and weariness !" 

One of the saddest features in connection with 
the opium curse in China is the conspicuous part 
which professedly Christian countries have taken in 
its encouragement. There is nothing to show in his- 
tory that the juice of the poppy was valued in China 
for anything but its medicinal properties until the 
empire began to have trade relations, first with the 
Portuguese and then with the English in the eigh- 
teenth century. For half a century, in spite of the 
protests of the Chinese Government and the havoc 
that it was creating in the land, the British East 
India Company continued to smuggle its Bengal 
opium into various parts of China. In 1840 the 
Chinese Emperor became so alarmed at the prev- 
alence of the habit that he appointed a man by the 
name of Lin as a special Imperial Commissioner to 
take what steps he could to put an end to the nefari- 
ous traffic. Lin's efforts in Canton brought him 
into collision with the English traders, and his con- 
fiscation of twenty thousand chests of opium precipi- 
tated the first Opium War. British gunboats 
went up China's rivers and along her coasts, burn- 
ing junks, destroying fortifications and slaughtering 
soldiers, until helpless to resist any longer the Chi- 
nese were compelled to yield and make all the con- 

[176] 



SEDUCTIVE 



cessions that the victors demanded. In 1857 came 
the second Opium War, which resulted in the Treaty 
of Tientsin, when China was forced to legalise the 
accursed traffic and guarantee protection to the hated 
foreign trafficker. Until this time the Chinese Gov- 
ernment had not tolerated the cultivation of the 
poppy plant, but now rather than see the country 
drained of silver to buy of India a narcotic that can 
easily be produced on the soil of China, the Govern- 
ment removed its restriction, and the poppy spread 
with such great rapidity that by the beginning of the 
twentieth century six-sevenths of the drug con- 
sumed by the Chinese was native grown and the 
quantity used was seventy times as much as was 
used one hundred years before. 

In her dealings with other nations Great Britain 
has won the enviable reputation of being most fair 
and honourable, but the opium trade with China 
stands out as a hideous exception. It is a deep, dark, 
damnable blot upon her name, where the good of 
the weak was deliberately and cruelly sacrificed to 
the commercial interests of the strong. It is a mat- 
ter of satisfaction now to know that in the titanic 
struggle upon which China has recently entered to 
free herself from the slavery of opium she has been 
assured of the sympathetic co-operation and support 
of the nation that inflicted upon her her greatest 
wrong. 

[177] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



What a brave and successful fight China has been 
waging against opium! It is without question the 
most extensive and the most relentless warfare on 
a vicious personal habit that the world has ever 
known. By 1917 she hopes to see the end of the 
growth, sale and consumption of the evil. To this 
purpose much blood has been shed and property 
destroyed. So loyally and thoroughly have some 
viceroys entered into this patriotic movement that 
in their provinces to-day there scarcely remains a 
poppy leaf. China has awakened to the fact that 
there is no hope for her among the nations of the 
world, unless she wins the victory. May that vic- 
tory be complete and permanent ! 

While China is in a life and death struggle for 
national existence, for the moral and physical regen- 
eration of her people; what shall we say of those 
American and British business firms who can take 
advantage of such a crisis to push in every city and 
hamlet throughout the land the sale of cigarettes 
and intoxicating liquors, and even in foreign con- 
cessions like Shanghai, where the foreigner is beyond 
Chinese control, to traffic in the forbidden drug! 
What a sad commentary upon our boasted Western 
civilisation when the Chinese reformer is compelled 
for purposes of self-preservation not only to form 
anti-opium, but anti-cigarette and anti-alcoholic 
leagues ! 

[178] 



XVI 
THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 



XVI 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 



THROUGH the generosity of the Rev. J. F. 
Goucher, D.D., the well-known educationist 
of Baltimore, the Methodist Episcopal Church was 
enabled to open a mission in West China in the year 
1882, and the Rev. L. N. Wheeler, D.D., formerly 
Superintendent of the North China Methodist Mis- 
sion, was asked to lead the new undertaking. The 
City of Chungking, in the Province of Szechwan, 
with its seven hundred thousand inhabitants, was 
selected as the headquarters of the new mission. 
Chungking stands in the same relation to West China 
as Hankow does to the Central Provinces. It is 
the great distributing point for the upper river, and 
through it passes the traffic of sixty millions of peo- 
ple with the outside world. 

After many months of property-hunting, Dr. 
Wheeler succeeded in purchasing within the city a 
favourable site. The old Chinese buildings which 

[181] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



stood upon it were repaired and used for chapel, 
school and residential purposes. From the opening 
of the work the interest was widespread and crowds 
attended the Sunday services. In 1886 a fine new 
property was purchased three miles from the city 
upon the main road leading to Chentu. Here they 
intended to build residences, a hospital, a chapel 
and boys' and girls' schools. Shortly after the 
buildings had been commenced, the military students 
came up to Chungking for their triennial examina- 
tions, and as they were anti-foreign in spirit, soon 
set afloat all sorts of absurd rumours about the newly 
acquired mission property. The new houses, they 
declared, were to be forts from which cannon would 
be turned upon the city to destroy it. They pre- 
tended to have found a book which told of a dragon 
whose head was in one river and whose tail was in 
another, a mile away. The mission buildings, they 
stated, were located exactly upon the dragon's neck 
and were crushing him, and if building operations 
did not cease, dire calamities would follow, such 
as drought, famine and pestilence. The result of 
such inflammatory statements was a fierce riot last- 
ing for several days, in which all mission buildings — 
Protestant and Roman Catholic — were looted and 
destroyed, and all the foreign missionaries, after 
suffering many indignities, were driven out. To 
secure indemnity from the Chinese Government for 

[182] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

all the losses sustained by the Methodist missionaries 
and to re-establish the work, was the task assigned to 
Mr. Hart by Bishop Fowler. 

Early one May morning in 1887 the junk con- 
taining the missionary and his party entered the 
anchorage of Chungking. They had hoped that their 
arrival had not been observed, for it was the Sabbath 
and they wished to be quiet, but the Chungking small 
boy is as ubiquitous and inquisitive as is his brother 
anywhere else, and it was not long before a crowd 
of gaping, little fellows had collected on the bank 
and had tried all manner of means to gratify their 
curiosity by getting a good, square look at the for- 
eigners. In a short while nearly everybody in the 
city had learned of their coming and the small boys 
on the bank were strongly reinforced by equally curi- 
ous men and women of all classes and descriptions. 
The thought plainly written upon their countenances 
was, "These foreigners are queer beings. We mob 
and drive them away, as we did a few months ago. 
We burn their houses and destroy their goods only 
to see others come and take their places." 

Elbowing their way through the crowd came the 
secretaries of the Taotai of the city, who demanded 
their passports and inquired as to their future move- 
ments. A native preacher who had given the former 
missionaries no little trouble, and who had feathered 
his nest during and after the riots by selling the 

[183] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



property of the mission which had escaped destruc- 
tion, came aboard and meekly sought an interview. 
His story was a long and pathetic one of how he had 
been persecuted and punished by the officials for his 
loyalty to the cause and his desire to protect the 
property of the unfortunate missionaries. So over- 
come was he with emotion in telling his story that 
he burst into almost uncontrollable weeping. Mr. 
Hart quickly closed the interview and bade the ly- 
ing, thieving rascal depart and compose himself. 

The first business of the new Superintendent was 
to rent a suitable dwelling. His native teacher 
scoured the city for several days and finally reported 
some houses near the old mission property that had 
been destroyed. Mr. Hart writes, "Being anxious 
to keep in advance of reports and head off any 
schemes that the officials might have, I went immedi- 
ately to inspect them. Rambling over damp, mouldy 
and decaying residences to find one fit to live in is 
not agreeable, but at last a bargain was struck with 
the degenerate scion of the Loh family for three 
hundred dollars a year, including heavy furniture." 
This ancient mansion, though it was the best avail- 
able, had not a single bright room in it — every room 
was dark, badly ventilated, damp and sepulchral. 
It had to do, however, until more comfortable for- 
eign-built houses were erected. Upon renting the 
house, the Taotai was duly notified and politely 

[i8 4 ] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

requested to issue a proclamation stating to the good 
people of the city that the missionaries were among 
them again. The Taotai graciously complied with 
the request and shortly a proclamation reading some- 
thing like this was pasted on a large board and placed 
at the front gate of the missionaries' residence : 

"This Edict is published to make you acquainted 
that Rev. Mr. Hart, of America, and others are so- 
journing in Chungking. Wherever they may have 
their dwelling, it is reasonable and just that they 
should be respected. Having issued this Edict I 
expect that soldiers and civilians — all classes — will 
make its acquaintance. If after its issue there shall 
be any loafers at the place, sitting or lying around, 
using uproarious language, or should there be idlers 
and drunkards making trouble, they shall be pun- 
ished severely and not pardoned. Let each one 
tremblingly obey and by no means dare to rebel 
against this special Edict. Thirteenth year of 
Kwang Su, Fourth Moon, Sixth Day. 

"Be certain to paste this upon the dwelling of the 
American teachers that all may be notified. 5 ' 

This was not a bad proclamation after all to come 
from the hand of one who with one or two other 
local officials had really inspired the rioting and the 
looting done by the populace a few months before 
in the anti-foreign disturbances. Such is the irony 
of fate ! 

Two weeks after their arrival in Chungking, Mr. 

[185] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Faber engaged a native boat to take him to the City 
of Kiating, on the river Min, a tributary of the 
Yangtse, three hundred miles distant. From thence 
he was to proceed to the cool shades of Mount Omei 
for a few weeks of study and rest. It was decided 
that Mr. Hart and Dr. Morley, a month later, 
should go overland in sedan chairs to Chengtu, 
the capital of the province, and from Chengtu, by 
water and chair, to Mount Omei and there join Mr. 
Faber. 

The journey was undertaken for several reasons, 
the chief of which were to mingle among the people 
throughout the populous districts and test their pres- 
ent temper and attitude towards foreigners; to ob- 
tain as much knowledge as possible of the country 
and of those centres, particularly, that might likely 
be occupied by Methodist and other denominations 
as mission stations; to disseminate religious litera- 
ture; and to satisfy a longing to see the provincial 
capital and the far-famed "Glory of Buddha" on 
the top of Omei. 

On the morning of June 27, after bidding farewell 
to Mr. Cady, who was left to hold the fort at all 
cost, Mr. Hart and Dr. Morley began their over- 
land journey. Besides their chair-bearers were cool- 
ies carrying large baskets crammed with choice 
tracts and Gospels for distribution along the way, 
and an escort of soldiers which the Taotai insisted 

[186] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

they must have to afford them protection. It was 
quite an imposing little procession that passed out 
of Chungking Westward into the country — the escort 
at the head, screaming and swaggering and clearing 
the way, greatly purled up with the importance of 
their new mission. The highway that they traversed 
was one of the best in China — wide, well-paved 
and busy. They rode through groves of pine and 
past orange and mulberry orchards; through endless 
fields of millet and rice ; through large market towns 
at intervals of ten miles with scores of hamlets and 
villages between. Spanning the road at conspicu- 
ous points were massive stone arches erected to the 
memory of virtuous widows who had died honoured 
and beloved by their families and neighbours. 

At a place called Lung Chang the travellers left 
the main road to visit the brine wells at Tzeliutsing, 
two days' journey distant. As this new road was 
considered unsafe the escort was materially strength- 
ened. Strong gaseous odours emitted from the 
streams that they crossed indicated their proximity 
to Tzeliutsing, a city that eclipses Rome in the num- 
ber of hills upon which it is built. Some of the hills 
were so steep that the streets seemed almost per- 
pendicular. There are few busier cities in China 
than this city. The streets are thronged at all hours 
of the day with pushing, bustling, wide-awake peo- 
ple, all intent after the making of money. Squad 

ri8 7 ] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



after squad of salt carriers are met at every turn in 
the narrow streets, made still more narrow by piles 
of bamboo poles intended to be used as brine and 
gas conductors. 

"I had sent my teacher ahead to secure lodgings 
for the night," writes Mr. Hart, "and as we reached 
the centre of the city he made his appearance much 
excited because the hotels had refused to receive 
foreigners, fearing that the rush of people who would 
gather to see them would injure their business. A 
halt was made in the square, where several streets 
converged and a council held. While we debated 
the measures to be adopted, the crowd momentarily 
increased and became somewhat excited. Just then 
the bright idea of marching our exhausted coolies 
half a mile up the steep hill to the branch magis- 
terial office, flashed through the head of our Honan 
teacher. The order was given, and with many 
groans and curses our jaded men lifted their heavy 
burdens to their shoulders, and with the aid of our 
escort a path was made through the dense crowd. 
The street was closely packed with sight-seers all 
the way to the Yamen, and when the outer court 
was reached an unruly mob took full possession of 
it, leaving little space for our chairs. We sent our 
cards to the magistrate and when a proper time 
had elapsed and we received no answer, our teacher 
and the escort threw open the great doors to the guest 

[188] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

hall, conducted us in with much ceremony, and 
bolted the doors behind us in the faces of the mob. 
The menials about the Yamen were no less surprised 
than the clamouring crowd outside by this sudden 
and successful manoeuvre. As usual, on such occasions, 
the official was 'not in town,' though probably not 
twenty paces from us. Meanwhile we occupied seats 
in the cool guest-hall as composedly as if in a way- 
side tea-shop, laughing inwardly at the turn affairs 
had taken through the stubborness of the inn-keep- 
ers and the unnecessary fright of our teacher and 
the escort. The din of many voices resounded from 
the outer court, while the secretary and underlings 
rushed in and out receiving instructions from the 
absent official. Tea was brought and we sipped it 
leisurely while keeping up a running conversation 
with the secretary and the teacher. The latter was 
determined to carry things with a high hand, and 
insisted that the guest-hall should be turned into a 
bed and dining-room for the distinguished guests. 
The secretary pleaded that it was impossible and that 
they were greatly alarmed for our safety. As the 
officials had volunteered to give us protection on the 
journey, and were rather jealous of the prerogative, 
my mind was very easy, knowing full well that hav- 
ing possession of the Yamen a hotel would be se- 
cured in due time. Finally a messenger was des- 
patched by the secretary to the largest tea-shop to 

[189] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



have the best room put at our disposal. There was 
a sudden parade of soldiers through the crowded 
streets, and in their wake we followed — triumphant. 
When we reached the inn the proprietor, now in his 
right mind, met us at the door with all his blandish- 
ments of manner." Thus that exciting first night in 
Tzeliutsing happily closed. 

The next day Mr. Hart and Dr. Morley visited 
the salt wells for which this place is deservedly 
famous. For nearly two thousand years many of 
these wells have been in operation and not a few 
of them have remained in the control of the same 
family during all that time. The owner of one of 
the large salt establishments was asked how long he 
had been in the business. He laughed heartily, and 
replied with dignity, "For twenty generations, sir!" 
Several of the wells are from three to five thousand 
feet in depth. Mr. Hart stood at the mouth of 
one well and measured the rope that was attached 
to a descending bamboo tube and found that it 
measured, exactly, three thousand, three hundred 
and sixty-six feet. It seems incredible that these na- 
tive Szechwanese, with their clumsy bamboo drills, 
can bore to such great depths — depths that have as 
yet baffled the more scientific Westerner. 

It is an interesting sight to watch the water- 
buffaloes — some half-dozen — each with his shouting 
driver, pull the long bamboo tubes or buckets up 
[190] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

from the depths of the well. The rope is wound 
about a huge drum-like wheel or cylinder, located 
a few yards from the derrick from which the tube 
is suspended. At first the buffaloes strain and tug 
at the rope; then they walk and finally break into a 
trot, stopping as the tube appears at the top. While 
the brine is being emptied into a large vat, the 
buffaloes are detached and perhaps exchanged for 
fresh ones. In a few minutes the tube is ready for 
another descent. Down it goes as fast as the rope 
can unwind itself from the flying cylinder. Hardly 
does it reach the bottom when the buffaloes are again 
hitched to the rope and another tubeful of frothy 
brine is on its way up to the vat. Though the buffa- 
loes are given a rest after each second or third pull, 
the men employed at the well are compelled to 
labour often twenty-four hours at a stretch before 
they are relieved. 

Side by side with these marvellous brine-wells, 
and reaching to similar depths, are what the natives 
call "fire-wells." The gas which they supply is con- 
fined in great reservoirs and is distributed to the 
various factories as needed by means of very rude 
appliances. It is utilised in large quantities for boil- 
ing the salt and providing light. 

Four days of further journeying from Tzeliut- 
sing, over a lofty mountain range and down into 
the fertile valley that skirts the beautiful river Min, 

[191] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



brought our missionary and his friend to the city of 
Chengtu, the greatest of all the cities in Western 
China. As far back as the thirteenth century, 
Marco Polo, the famous Venetian traveller, visited 
it and found it "very great and exceeding rich." 

Commercially and educationally Chengtu has few 
rivals in China. It possesses many ancient and beau- 
tiful temples and monasteries; is the burial place of 
one of the early emperors and the birth place of 
one of the three greatest Chinese philosophers — Lao 
tsz, the founder of Taoism, one of China's popular 
religions. Within the city walls are two other walled 
enclosures, the Imperial City and the Manchu City. 
Outside its gates there stretches for a hundred miles 
or more one of the most fertile spots on the earth and 
one of the most thickly populated. A system of 
irrigation, two hundred years older than the Chris- 
tian Era, keeps the plain from all danger of drouth 
and ensures a succession of vast crops of rice and 
other valuable cereals. 

Mr. Hart's first impressions of Chengtu were 
rather disappointing, probably due to the fact that 
he arrived late in the afternoon of an exceedingly 
hot day and that he proceeded along a most malo- 
dorous street to an equally malodorous inn, though 
it bore the reputation of being the best in the city. 
So foul were his apartments that he sent for a load 
of lime to sprinkle over the floors, and a load of 
[192] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

mud to plaster over the rat holes. This may have 
been the very same inn at which Mr. Hosie, the 
British Consular General, stayed some years before, 
and in which he found these appropriate lines scrib- 
bled upon the walls : 

"Within this room you'll find the rats 
At least a goodly score; 
Three catties each they're bound to weigh, 
Or e'en a little more. 

"At night you'll find a myriad bugs 
That smell and crawl and bite; 
If doubtful of the truth of this, 
Get up and strike a light." 

Mr. Hosie, thinking that this description of a 
Szechwanese inn erred on the side of leniency, added 
a verse of his own : 

"Within, without, vile odours dense 
Assail the unwary nose; 
Behind the grunter squeaks and squeals 
And baffles all repose. 
Add clouds of tiny, buzzing things, 
Mosquitoes — if you please, 
Why, bless me! there are fleas." 

The next city included in Mr. Hart's itinerary 
was Kiating, one hundred and twenty miles to the 
south of Chengtu. This city was reached by a small 
native boat borne upon the swift-flowing waters of 

[193] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the Min. Kiating, in Chinese, means the "City of 
Delights." It is a name well bestowed. Those who 
have travelled in many lands declare that the view 
obtained from the hill on which the city is built is 
as fine as any to be seen in any city of the world. 

Across the river from Kiating are lofty sandstone 
bluffs honeycombed with curious and spacious caves, 
carved out of the solid rock by the Mantzs — the 
original inhabitants of this part of China. Here 
also in a deep rock-recess is to be seen the most 
gigantic piece of sculpture in the world, the famous 
carved Mileh Buddha. The statue is in a sitting 
posture and is three hundred and sixty feet high. 
The circumference of the head is a hundred feet and 
the length of the face is sixty feet. It was designed 
by a Buddhist priest in the early part of the eighth 
century and took nineteen years to carve. On either 
side of the god are guards of colossal size and finely 
chiselled. To those not versed in Buddhist lore 
a brief explanation as to whom Mileh Buddha is 
may not be amiss. Mileh occupies one of the seats 
of the mighty in the Buddhist Pantheon. He was 
the most important personage among the disciples 
of the great Gautama, and was appointed by the 
princely Sage to be his successor and to appear as 
Buddha after five thousand years. He is, therefore, 
the expected Messiah of the Buddhists, residing at 

[194] 



THE RE-ESTABLISHED MISSION 

present in Fuchita from which exalted place he 
directs the propagation of the Buddhist faith. He 
is the personification of charity and from the broad 
smile which appears upon his imaged face he has 
often been called the "Laughing Buddha." 



[195] 



XVII 
"ONE STEP FROM HEAVEN" 



XVII 



"one step from heaven" 



WHAT Mecca is to the Mohammedan, Mount 
Omei is to the Chinese Buddhist. It is the 
resort, annually, of millions of pilgrims who come 
from all parts of China and its outlying divisions, 
particularly Thibet. To the devout Buddhist its 
seventy monasteries, its hundreds of temples and 
shrines, its numerous marvels and sacred relics, its 
cloud-enveloped summit, towering eleven thousand 
feet above the sea and from which may be seen the 
"Glory of Buddha," make it the most precious spot 
upon earth — to use the words of the Buddhist, it is 
but "one step from Heaven" 

For many years Mr. Hart, who was steeped in 
Chinese religious lore, had been anxious to see this 
holy mountain which had figured so largely for cen- 
turies in fable and story. While at Kiating the 
coveted opportunity was afforded him of gratifying 
his desire. 

[199] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



With chair-coolies and baggage men, he and Dr. 
Morley started early on the fifteenth of July. On 
the evening of the same day they reached Omei 
Hsien, a superbly romantic little city, nestling at the 
foot of the mountain. They found all the public 
houses in the place crowded with pilgrims. So taxed 
were the accommodations that they were only able, 
after much persuasion, to get sufficient room in one 
inn to spread their beds upon the floor. Some of the 
pilgrims whom they met had walked a thousand 
miles and more to Mount Omei. One man, a dig- 
nified old priest, footsore and weary, had come all 
the way from Peking. He had been months on 
the journey and had carried all his earthly treasures 
neatly packed in two bundles suspended from the 
ends of a long "carrying-pole." Mr. Hart's teacher 
— something of a wag — noticing that every pilgrim 
carried a yellow incense bag, the contents of which 
would be burned reverently in some temple or shrine, 
purchased one, too, but alas ! he devoted it to a less 
holy purpose. To the astonishment of his foreign 
friends as well as to the natives he irreverently used 
it to hold his pipe and tobacco. 

With high expectations, at sunrise the next day, 
Mr. Hart and Dr. Morley joined the stream of pil- 
grims who were to begin the long and difficult 
ascent of Mount Omei. The pilgrims were of all 
ages and classes in society. Many of them were 
[200] 



FROM 



women. Each pilgrim was provided with a stout 
staff for climbing. These staves were quaintly 
carved at the top with a figure of a dragon or a 
tiger. It is the correct thing after the pilgrimage 
is performed to have the staff painted red and black 
and gold and preserved as a sacred souvenir. Beg- 
gars, young and old, were out in force this hot sum- 
mer morning, and posted at their accustomed places 
along the road told their piteous tales to the pas- 
sers-by. The scenery was simply grand, becoming 
more and more beautiful as they left the plain. 
Charming crystal streams, shaded by arching wil- 
lows, were crossed on long, narrow bridges over 
which only one person could safely pass at a time. 
Some of these bridges were ornamented at the centre 
with huge dragons, the heads of which would face 
up stream while the tails would project from the 
other side of the bridge. These dragons were there 
for more than decorative purposes. They were 
guards to ward off evil spirits. The dragon and the 
tiger in China are popular symbols of power — and 
both of these symbols are much in evidence on Mount 
Omei. There are at least a dozen shrines where 
fierce-looking images of tigers stand half way out 
of the doors as though they were weary of the role 
that they were playing as protectors and were con- 
templating a raid upon the worshippers. 

The ascent of the mountain is by continuous 

[201] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



flights of steps, cut into the solid rock. In one 
flight alone there are twelve hundred steps. Here 
and there huge Banyan trees stretch their giant arms 
across the steep, rocky paths to give grateful shade 
and rest to the poor chair-coolies as they toil up the 
interminable steps with their human freight. What 
marvels of strength and endurance these chair-men 
are! What nerves of iron some of them possess! 
The usual method of carriage on Mount Omei is 
to sit on a wooden perch attached to the shoulders 
of a coolie. The story is told of how an American 
traveller had been carried up to the summit in this 
way. At one point the coolie stopped on the edge of 
a precipice to take a little rest and suddenly stooped 
down, so that the American hung over the abyss. On 
his uttering a remonstrance, the coolie remarked 
quite unconcernedly, "Have no fear! I am only 
picking up a pebble with my toes." He was stand- 
ing on one leg ! 

Ten miles from Omei Hsien our travellers entered 
a wild ravine, down which plunged a mad torrent, 
cutting deeper and deeper, now wider, now narrower, 
into the limestone ledges, bending this way and 
that through one of the most romantic gorges imag- 
inable. Not far from the head of this gorge sur- 
rounded by dense groves, alive with singing birds, 
and approached by three hundred broad stone steps, 
stood the "Shen-Wan-Men-Sz," — the Holy Monas- 
[202] 



STEP FROM 



tery of a Myriad Years. Here in this beautiful re- 
treat they were welcomed by Mr. Faber from whom 
they had parted at Chungking six weeks before. 
Some young priests hospitably supplied them with 
cups of hot tea and later conducted them to com- 
fortable apartments which they were to occupy dur- 
ing their stay on the mountain. 

Long before daylight of the next day, sounds of 
sonorous bells and the beating of drums, calling the 
monks to their morning orisons, awakened the for- 
eign guests of the monastery. They arose and before 
breakfast made a circuit of the venerable pile ren- 
dered sacred by eight centuries of worship and 
famous by the visits and the costly gifts of emper- 
ors, kings and feudal princes. What Mr. Hart saw 
that glorious July morning from the monastery 
height left an indelible impress upon his mind. "It 
would seem," he writes, "that the Creator could have 
added nothing more to bring all the surroundings 
into harmonious beauty. The towering mountains, 
the gently sloping spurs, the ledges and pali- 
sades, the cool streams, the myriads of songsters, 
the long line of ascending pilgrims, looking like 
ants in the distance, bewilder the imagination. 
Like the Queen of Sheba, we feel that there is no 
more spirit in us. 'It was a true report that I heard 
in mine own land . , . Howbeit I believed not the 

C 2 °3] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



words until I came, and mine eyes had seen it; and 
behold the half was not told me.' " 

Among the many curious objects that attract the 
interest of the visitor at Mount Omei is a fifteen- 
storied pagoda, well-executed in bronze and about 
thirty feet in height. Each story displays a large 
number of images of different and intricate designs. 
There are four thousand seven hundred images of 
Buddha alone in this pagoda, in all sizes and atti- 
tudes and every one of them is exquisitely wrought. 
The pagoda is of great age and is considered to be 
one of the finest monuments in the country. Near 
the pagoda, over a gateway, hangs an immense 
bronze ball weighing twenty thousand pounds and 
covered with finely engraved characters recounting 
many incidents connected with the early history of 
the place. On a little tray before a scarred image 
in the monastery, a red rag hides one of the most 
venerated relics in the world— a tooth of Buddha. 
It was brought from India a thousand years ago and 
measures fourteen inches in length, eleven inches in 
width and three inches in thickness. It is of beauti- 
ful yellow ivory as smooth as glass from the ceasless 
handling of countless pilgrims and weighs about 
eighteen pounds. Of course it is nothing more than 
a very large elephant's molar, but the poor credu- 
lous pilgrim does not know it and never asks any 
embarrassing questions. When Mr. Hart remarked 
[204] 



STEP FROM 



to the priest in charge of the relic that Buddha must 
have had an enormous mouth to accommodate such 
a tooth, he meekly replied, "Yes, it is a matter I 
do not fully comprehend." 

The most interesting feature of the monastery 
to our missionary was an elephant, made of the pur- 
est and most costly bronze, of uncommonly good 
workmanship and standing nine feet high. On the 
back of the elephant is a magnificent bronze image 
of the god, Pu-hsien, who as a sage came to Omei 
from India in the third century before Christ, rid- 
ing on a white elephant. These two bronze images 
were cast at Chengtu in the tenth century and are 
enclosed in a brick building, the walls of which 
are square and the roof a revolving dome. The 
square walls symbolise the earth and the dome the 
heavens. On each side of this unique building are 
seven shelves representing the seven stories of the 
Buddhist heaven, filled with thousands of little 
bronze idols. 

In close proximity to the elephant, lying upon a 
high couch and covered by two cotton spreads lies 
Wo-fuh, the "Sleeping Buddha." For ten cen- 
turies Wo-fuh is supposed to have been asleep. How 
reverently the simple pilgrims gaze upon what they 
believe to be the actual body of their unconscious 
deity. 

Eight thousand feet above the monastery rises 

[205] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the crowning peak of Mount Omei. At its topmost 
point, when conditions are favourable, may be seen 
the "Glory of Buddha." This is a feature of the 
sacred mount that no pilgrim, with strength to climb 
or nerve to ride, omits. With Dr. Morley, Mr. Hart 
on a cloudless morning, late in July, began the dizzy 
ascent. At intervals of two or three miles they 
found commodious buildings which served the dou- 
ble purpose of temples and inns. Here they were 
cordially received by the resident priests and fur- 
nished with refreshing bowls of tea. After a weary 
climb of ten miles they reached the famous temple 
of Si Siang when they were overtaken by a dense 
fog, which prevented further progress that day. Mr. 
Hart thus describes the scenery through which they 
had passed in their ascent. "The ten miles we have 
made to ascend six thousand feet were through a 
veritable park. No spot on the globe can boast a 
greater variety of vegetation, or scenes more beau- 
tiful. There is not a barren acre nor a peak bereft 
of verdure. I estimate we have seen fifty varieties 
of trees in the ascent; flowers without number and 
of every hue ; ferns everywhere ; black currant bushes 
of immense size growing from steep declivities — 
their trunks covered with green moss, and their 
branches laden with well-flavoured berries. The 
insect life is marvellous. Butterflies and moths fly 
[206] 



STEP FROM 



recklessly around and above us, as if inviting cap- 
ture." 

At the foot of the temple at Si Siang our travel- 
lers were shown the pool where tradition says the 
god Pu-hsien bathed his white elephant during his 
sojourn in the mountain. At this high altitude 
they felt the cold so keenly that a large charcoal 
fire was kindled for them that night in the temple. 
Before daylight the next morning, fortified with 
a good cup of coffee, they started upon the last 
stage of their mountain climb. Resting upon a nar- 
row ridge they caught a glorious glimpse of the river 
Min, winding through a valley, forty miles away. 
Farther to the south, piercing through heavy clouds, 
shone in majestic splendor the snow-crowned peaks 
bordering Thibet. Seeing the foreigners standing 
with rapt gaze upon the scene, a priest drew near 
and exclaimed, "Those mountains that you are look- 
ing upon yonder are thirty days' journey distant." 
"When shall another such morning," asks Mr. Hart, 
"with such views, greet my eyes?" After several 
hours of further hard climbing they came to a stone 
tunnel over the archway of which they read these 
words: "One step from Heaven" Pilgrims in 
large numbers were ascending and descending, all 
excited by what they had seen or hoped to see. At 
the close of the second day they reached the temple 
at the summit, tired yet exultant and ready for rest. 

[207] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



But little rest was secured that memorable night. 
The temple was crowded with sleepless guests who 
passed the time either in loud conversation or smok- 
ing opium. All were eager for the coming of the 
dawn. The next day Mr. Hart and Dr. Morley ex- 
plored the summit. They discovered that the tem- 
ple in which they had spent the night was but a 
few rods from a precipice that had a perpendicular 
fall of one mile. The weather was most uncertain. 
At one moment the sky was a cloudless blue and 
the sun's rays beat fierce and strong; the next mo- 
ment a dense mist would sweep up from the moun- 
tain gulfs below and envelop heaven and earth. 
Thunder storms were quite frequent — the lightning 
playing below instead of above them. 

From the head-rock at the verge of the precipice 
the pilgrims beheld the "Glory of Buddha." "Into 
these depths come daily," writes Mr. Hart, "white 
feathery clouds, floating from north to south, and 
passing the out-jutting points until the broad ex- 
panse directly below us is completely filled; not a 
peak remains unveiled; then the gauze-like clouds 
float higher and higher, until early in the afternoon 
— from two to four o'clock — the cliffs are mirrored 
upon these bright, white walls. Then if the observer 
stands upon the edge of the precipice, and the sun 
shines brightly upon him, he will see his dark shadow 
away off upon the white clouds, with an exceedingly 
[208] 



STEP FROM 



bright and sometimes large halo around it, which 
changes in size and brilliancy every moment as the 
mists rise, or recede, or advance. Stretch forth your 
hands, and the giant shadow does likewise. Now 
the mist rises and dances about your feet, and finally 
obscures the sun's rays, and the 'glory' is gone." 

"It is while thus gazing that many pilgrims in 
their ecstatic frenzy, either intentionally or not, 
throw themselves over into the abyss. One monk 
tells us that there are 'many tens' of pilgrims who 
annually throw themselves over to Buddha. An- 
other monk says that the act is not intentional ; that 
they are dazed, and leaning too far over fall down. 
My own experience was that as the gulf filled up 
with clouds swaying to and fro, and rising almost to 
the level of the rock on which I stood, the giddiness 
which follows looking into the open gulf left me, 
and I could stand within a foot of the edge of the 
precipice as easily as by the sea shore. I also found 
myself when the aureola was brightest making in- 
sensible advances towards the image in it. This 
natural phenomenon which is peculiar to some other 
mountains — such as Adam's Peak in Ceylon and the 
Spectre of the Brocken in the Hartz Mountains — 
is considered by the devout Chinaman, the manifes- 
tation of Buddha's spiritual presence, and an object 
of worship." 

[209] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Mr. Hart and his young medical friend spent ten 
days amid the wonders of this highest point on 
Mount Omei. One day, full of the spirit of adven- 
ture, thev resolved to follow a lumberman's trail 
which they discovered "zig-zagging" down the south 
side of the crag. In describing their excursion, Mr. 
Hart says, "We scarcely had a foothold on the rocks; 
sometimes the loose earth was partially banked up 
with half-decayed sticks and spruce boughs; below 
us were only yawning chasms. We reached one 
ledge where a ladder rested, the other end being on 
another ledge, which descended several hundred feet ; 
we passed over and reached the out jutting wall of 
solid rock on the opposite side of this chasm. It 
now became a subject of serious debate whether a 
thousand feet of such climbing, done principally 
on all fours, or by hanging to twigs and roots above 
us, would pay for the ferns we might get. The 
coolie we had picked up at the temple advised us 
to return. However, we went on, led by Dr. Mor- 
ley. The path grew worse and worse, until the 
descent was made upon two logs placed together, 
with holes chopped in them for the feet. I felt 
quite ashamed of my nervousness upon meeting two 
brawny lumbermen, carrying heavy planks up this 
almost perpendicular road. Each man carried three 
planks fourteen feet long, one foot wide, and one to 
[210] 



STEP FROM 



two inches thick. The planks were lashed to a yoke 
three feet long, which rested upon the shoulders. 
On our way back we found it almost impossible to 
pull ourselves up over places which they scaled with 
seeming ease. Reaching the lumbermen's forest, we 
had an hour of unalloyed bliss searching for flowers 
and rare ferns, and were rewarded by finding some 
beautiful specimens." It is of interest to note that 
two or three of the specimens procured by our travel- 
lers that day in their climb were not known to the 
scientific world, and they were later awarded the 
honour of being the first discoverers. 

The room which Mr. Hart occupied in the tem- 
ple at the summit opened out into the sanctuary, 
where the gods were enthroned. One morning as he 
emerged from his room two pilgrims who were pros- 
trating themselves before the idols caught sight of 
him. Never had they seen a being like this in their 
lives. Surely he must be a god, too — perhaps Bud- 
dha, himself! They turned quickly from their wor- 
ship of the idols and fell at his feet, knocking their 
heads upon the floor and crying, repeatedly, "Omito- 
foo! Omito-foo! Amita Buddha! Amita Buddha!" 
Poor, benighted souls ! how our missionary's heart 
went out to them that morning, as they in their 
darkness, were eagerly but vainly groping after that 
peace and comfort which alone can come through 

[211] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the revelation of God in Christ Jesus, His Son. 
Pathetic were those words once addressed to one of 
our missionaries by an Omei pilgrim as he lamented 
his failure in his search for truth: "I feel for the 
door, but I cannot find it." 



[212] 



XVIII 
TOR CANADA!" 



XVIII 



IT was past the middle of August, 1887, when 
Mr. Hart and his friends left Mount Omei on 
their return journey to Chungking. A few days by 
boat brought them to their destination. They found 
Mr. Cady, who had been left in charge of the re- 
established mission, tactfully winning his way 
among the officials and people of the city, allaying 
suspicions and gradually restoring confidence in the 
foreign missionary. 

As Mr. Hart's old enemy, malaria, had reappeared 
— and in a most aggravated form — it was thought 
advisible that he should return to his home in Can- 
ada as speedily as possible. The down-river trip 
was exceedingly difficult and dangerous, owing to 
the unusually high water caused by recent heavy 
rains. Wreck after wreck went floating by as they 
descended, and it was only through a kind provi- 
dence that their own boat did not come to grief. 

[215] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



As they were passing through the Wind-box Gorge 
the current sent their boat flying into the middle of 
the stream; it went round and round like a top. At 
a speed of ten miles an hour it was driven towards 
some sharp up-rising rocks, which it just barely 
grazed. "I cannot conceive of anything more excit- 
ing," says Mr. Hart, "than making the gorges of the 
Yangtse at high water. One ascent and descent of 
this river is enough for a life time." 

While on shore in this same gorge Dr. Morley 
had an experience which almost cost him his life. 
He had been disposing of some religious literature 
to a crowd of natives, when a ruffian, bent upon 
making trouble, appeared upon the scene. This man 
was naked downwards to his loins, brawny and pow- 
erful, with a most fiend-like countenance. His first 
act was to snatch the books from the doctor's arms. 
When the doctor attempted to recover them, the 
man seized him by the hair, put his arm about his 
neck and pulled him headlong into the river, where 
it was swift and deep. A struggle ensued, much to 
the disadvantage of the foreigner, as the man still 
had a firm hold upon his hair and neck. The doc- 
tor, being a good swimmer, resorted to every trick 
that he could think of to shake off his assailant, but 
he found that the man could endure submersion quite 
as well as himself. Finally, when almost exhausted, 
by a supreme effort, he compelled the fellow to re- 

[216] 



linquish his hold, and swimming to the shore, reached 
it more dead than alive. The ruffian was promptly 
arrested by the local officials and subsequently pun- 
ished. In addition to punishing the man the offi- 
cials very generously sent on board the foreigners' 
boat a large supply of fowl and vegetables. It was 
a peace-offering that came in most acceptably and 
did much to mollify the feelings of the injured 
doctor. 

Dr. Hart reached KiuKiang in time for the an- 
nual meeting of the Central China Mission, which 
was presided over by Bishop Henry W. Warren. 
On December 17, 1887, he sailed from Shanghai for 
San Francisco. Five weeks later he was with his 
family in Parkdale, Toronto. 

The first few months of his furlough were passed 
largely in preparing his first book for publication. 
During his long journey to Szechwan he had taken 
copious notes of all that he had seen, which he 
thought might prove of general interest. The result 
was a book which, to quote the words of a reviewer 
in the New York Tribune, was "graphic, picturesque 
and extremely interesting; a fresh, bright and really 
quite fascinating book of travels." This book, 
though written many years ago, is still an authority 
on West China. A little later appeared his second 
book — a popular treatment of the salient features 

[217] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



of Confucianism — to which was given the title, "The 
Temple and the Sage." 

For his literary work and Chinese scholarship 
Mr. Hart was honoured in 1888 by being elected 
a fellow of the Royal Asiatic Society, a distinction 
which afforded him much satisfaction. In 1888 his 
Alma Mater — the Garrett Biblical Institute of 
Evanston — conferred upon him the degree of Doc- 
tor of Divinity. 

The severe nervous strain of the past five years 
of unceasing toil and responsibility and the many 
hardships endured in connection with his travels 
in different parts of China, had played such havoc 
with his constitution that it became evident to Dr. 
Hart and his friends that the usual furlough of one 
year granted by the Missionary Society to its agents 
would not suffice to restore to him his health. Act- 
ing upon the advice of his physician in 1889, and 
much to the regret of the Missionary Board and his 
colleagues in the field, he resigned the superintend- 
ency of the missions in Central and West China. 

Receiving a good offer for his property in Park- 
dale, he sold it and moved his family to Fordham, 
New York, where for a year he gave himself assidu- 
ously to the work of Missionary Secretary in connec- 
tion with the Christian Alliance. But his work in 
the office and in the pulpit proved too exhausting 

[218] 



and he was compelled to abandon it and think only 
of his health, if he were ever to go back to China. 

About this time an opportunity presented itself 
of purchasing a small fruit farm in Burlington, On- 
tario. Years before his longing for such a place 
to recuperate during his visits home were expressed 
in these words: "I should like, if it is God's will, 
to have about ten acres of orchard and small fruits 
to cultivate. I am sure the occupation would afford 
me great pleasure, peace and rest." A year at "The 
Pines," as he named his retreat, brought a complete 
return of health. Life loomed up again with great 
possibilities. Though he did not realise it at the 
time, his work for missions was but half done. God 
had in reserve for him a great undertaking, in which 
his experience of a quarter of a century in China 
would be a factor of supreme value and importance. 
In a most providential way the opportunity was 
brought to his attention. 

The Methodist Church of Canada, at this time, 
had but one foreign mission and that was in Japan. 
There had been a feeling for some years among many 
of the prominent ministers and laymen that the 
Church should extend its missionary interests abroad. 
The West Indies, India, Palestine and China were 
all thought of as suitable fields. When the Execu- 
tive of the Missionary Board met in December of 
1889, two letters which Dr. Sutherland, the Mis- 

[219] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



sionary Secretary, had received were read. One of 
the letters was from David W. Stevenson, a student 
at Rush Medical College, Chicago, who had previ- 
ously volunteered for the foreign field when in 
Toronto. He stated that he expected to be ready for 
service the next spring. The other letter was from 
Dr. O. L. Kilborn, a tutor in chemistry at Queen's 
University, Kingston, Ontario. Dr. Kilborn said 
that he and another young man, George E. Hart- 
well, B.A., who was then studying in Drew Theologi- 
cal Seminary, Madison, New Jersey, were anxious 
to go as foreign missionaries. Before applying to 
the Missionary Boards of other denominations, they 
desired first to offer their services to their own church. 
They expected to be through their studies and ready 
to go in two years. "Will the Society send us to- 
gether to China in 1891 *?" asks the earnest young 
doctor. "We would work together — Mr. Hart well 
as preacher, and myself as doctor — in pushing for- 
ward the cause of Christ in some of the as yet un- 
touched provinces of China. I am well aware that I 
need not now urge upon you the importance of medi- 
cal mission work, and most especially as a pioneer 
agency in a land like China. And I trust that the re- 
cent agitation in favour of planting a new mission in 
China will be decided in the affirmative. If no one 
goes before, I believe we two would gladly lead the 
way — if our church will accept of us." 
[220] 



Though the Missionary Executive could not give 
any definite assurance to these young volunteers, yet 
their names were kept before them in the hope that 
the way might open for their employment when 
their studies were completed. 

At the annual meeting of the Board of Missions 
in October, 1890, the following resolution was en- 
thusiastically carried : 

"Whereas during several years past evidences have 
been accumulating, showing that the Head of the 
Church is calling us to enter some new field of heath- 
enism and thus far the leadings seem to be in the 
direction of China. 

"And whereas, several educated and devoted 
young men have offered themselves for this service, 
and will be ready to proceed to any designated field 
in the spring or autumn of 1891, therefore, resolved, 
that we respond to what seems to be a clear provi- 
dential call, and appeal to the whole church to sus- 
tain the Board in this forward movement, and that 
the Committee of Consultation and Finance be em- 
powered to take definite action in regard to the selec- 
tion of a field and the appointment of the young 
men who have volunteered." 

A similar resolution was subsequently passed by 
the Woman's Missionary Society and a call was 
made for two volunteers. 

The decision of the Missionary Board, as expressed 
in the resolution just given, met with almost uni- 

[221] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



versal favour throughout the church, and special 
contributions for the new mission came pouring in. 
Though China had been selected as the new field, 
no particular part of the empire had been definitely 
chosen in which to begin the work. The Rev. Dr. 
Wakefield, the Methodist minister at Burlington, 
who also was a member of the Missionary Board, 
had frequent conversations with Dr. Hart about 
the proposed new mission in China, and one day 
sought his advice as to the best location for it. 
Dr. Hart at once replied, "Szechwan!" Upon in- 
vitation he met the Committee of Consultation and 
Finance in Toronto, February 17, 1891. In glow- 
ing words he described the needs and the opportuni- 
ties of Szechwan — an empire in itself, with its 
teeming millions to whom only two Protestant so- 
cieties were ministering. He strongly recommended 
Szechwan to the Committee as the most inviting 
and promising field in all China for missionary op- 
erations. At the close of his address the Committee 
unanimously concluded to open work in Chengtu, 
the capital city of Szechwan, and the veteran mis- 
sionary was requested to assume the leadership. 
After a few days for consideration he accepted the 
invitation, subject to the approval of the Mission- 
ary authorities of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
of the United States. This approval was given with 
the expectation that within a short time he would 
[222] 



return to his old field on the lower Yangtse, but 
though he was twice importuned by the missionaries 
in Central China to come back and lead them, the 
work in West China was too important and too criti- 
cal to admit of his return. 

Dr. Hart looked upon his Canadian appointment 
as a magnificent opportunity. In a letter written 
at this time, he says, "Well, it does seem that God 
is to take me out into a large place ; I feel so insuffi- 
cient for this undertaking, but God knows how to 
use His children. Only think of the opportunity 
God has given me to establish another Mission — 
and for Canada! First He permitted me to estab- 
lish a mission for the United States in Central China, 
and to grow up with it. Then He sent me on a 
perilous mission to West China, to re-establish the 
work there, which, though I knew it not, paved the 
way for my present undertaking. Then, after much 
urging to come back to China and take up my old 
post, I resigned, but was permitted to do other work 
in the home land. Then, in broken health, laid aside 
for a time, I indulged in my old love for farming, 
which restored my health. Now I am to lead forth 
a contingent to the very place where God seemed to 
direct me to get the experience which will now be so 
valuable. Who knows the future? Let us pray 
for a gracious one !" 

[223] 



XIX 
THE FIRST CONTINGENT 



XIX 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 



THE pioneer band of Canadian Methodist mis- 
sionaries for West China consisted of Dr. 
and Mrs. Hart and their daughter, Estelle, Dr. and 
Mrs. O. L. Kilborn, Rev. and Mrs. G. E. Hartwell, 
Dr. D. W. Stevenson and Miss Amelia Brown, the 
representative of the Woman's Missionary Society. 
Dr. W. J. Hall had been appointed by the Mis- 
sionary Board to accompany the party, but he re- 
signed upon learning that his intended wife, who 
was then a medical missionary in Corea, could not 
secure a release for a year or so from the American 
society which she served. Instead of going to China 
Dr. Hall went to Corea, where he did heroic service 
until his premature death in 1895. 

Several months elapsed between the time of the 
appointment of the Canadian missionaries and their 
departure for China; an interval that was well em- 
ployed by them in visiting the various conferences 

[227] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and many of the larger churches in the Connexion. 
Everywhere they met with warm welcomes and un- 
bounded enthusiasm. Dr. Lathern, Editor of The 
Wesleyan, in moving a resolution of appreciation in 
the Nova Scotia Conference, said that in fifty years 
he had not seen a conference so mightily moved as 
had been theirs by the presence and message of the 
leader .of the new mission. Wherever Dr. Hart 
spoke he made a strong appeal for the hospital 
which he desired to see erected in Chengtu. Before 
he left for China he had the satisfaction of knowing 
that sufficient funds had been subscribed to warrant 
the carrying out of the project. 

On the night of September l, 1891, a farewell 
service was held in Elm Street Church, Toronto, for 
the departing missionaries. Rev. Dr. Carman, the 
General Superintendent, presided and gave a brief 
but telling address. After each of the missionaries 
had spoken, Dr. Sutherland followed, and in a few 
tender and impressive words bade them God-speed 
in the name of the church. During the succeeding 
four weeks, as they journeyed across the continent, 
similar meetings were held in London, Winnipeg, 
Brandon, New Westminster, Vancouver and Vic- 
toria. 

From Toronto to London the little party were 
accompanied by the Rev. David Hill, the great Wes- 
leyan missionary at Hankow, China, who was on 
[228] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

his way to the Ecumenical Conference at Washing- 
ton. It was an inspiration to the missionaries and 
to the large congregations that filled Queen's Avenue 
Church in London to see and to hear this sweet- 
spirited man of God — the St. John of modern Chris- 
tian missions. Months afterwards in Chengtu, Dr. 
Hart thus writes of the London visit: "Our recep- 
tion and meetings in Queen's Avenue Church on 
Sunday and Monday eclipsed anything of the kind 
in our whole missionary experience. The money 
raised for our work, though considerable, was not 
the important feature of the meetings — it was the 
spirit manifested by the good people of the city. We 
carried the precious influence of those hours of fel- 
lowship and prayer across the continent, across the 
Pacific and across the Chinese Empire." 

Three never-to-be-forgotten days were passed by 
the missionaries in Victoria. On the Sabbath, early 
in the morning, they addressed a large gathering of 
Chinese, after which they spoke in the different 
Methodist pulpits of the city. As a result of the 
day's services, twenty volunteered for mission work 
in China. The Chinese residents of the city were 
particularly interested in the visit of the mission- 
aries and vied with one another in manifesting their 
good will and generosity. They gave a reception in 
their honour, which was followed by a sumptuous 
repast. "Such a happy lot I never saw," writes Mrs. 

[229] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Hart in a letter to one of her sons, "they took up 
a collection among themselves for our work, and 
afterwards escorted us to the steamer to see us off." 

On the afternoon of the fourth of October, the 
beautiful new liner of the Canadian Pacific Railway 
Company, The Empress of China, left her moorings 
at Vancouver and steamed out upon the broad waters 
of the Pacific, bearing with her the tearful yet happy 
members of the first Canadian Methodist Contingent 
— bound for the holy war in China. 

The first point touched at in Japan was Hakodate, 
where the coal supply of the ship was augmented 
and the passengers were given the opportunity of 
going ashore and taking in the sights. Two days 
later The Empress entered the commodious harbour 
of Yokohama, from which could be seen the smoke 
of a living volcano. Here the missionaries were 
met and warmly welcomed by Dr. and Mrs. 
Meacham. It was a genuine pleasure to Dr. Hart 
and his wife to see these old friends — for Dr. 
Meacham had been for three years Mrs. Hart's pas- 
tor in Toronto. Now the venerable doctor was in 
charge of the Union English Church in Yokohama 
and seemed very happy in his work, looking "as 
sunny as the fair land in which his lot was cast." 
Short trips were made to Tokio, Shidzuoka and 
Nagoya, where the Superintendent and his young 
associates had the privilege of speaking in some of 

[230] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

the native churches and schools connected with the 
Canadian Methodist Mission. Three years after 
his visit to Shidzuoka, Dr. Hart received a letter 
from one of the missionaries stating that a young 
Japanese student who heard him speak when he was 
there was so impressed with the message that he 
was anxious to go to Chentu as a missionary. 

While our missionaries were in the old, historic 
city of Kioto, studying the splendid educational 
work of the American Board of Foreign Missions, 
a most disastrous earthquake occurred, the effects 
of which were felt throughout Japan. Dr. and Mrs. 
Hart and their daughter were the guests of Profes- 
sor Learned of the Doshisha. In his journal the 
doctor makes this reference to his experience on that 
eventful day: "While we were at early breakfast, 
without warning, the house began to sway and a 
rumbling sound was heard above our heads, the 
timbers of the building creaked as though they would 
come apart. The ladies ran into the yard and in a 
few moments the Professor and I followed. Just 
then a chimney burst through the roof and emptied 
clouds of soot over the breakfast table, the hall and 
the parlour. When we reached the open yard the 
earth seemed to be swimming around, which pro- 
duced in us giddiness and nausea. After the shock 
we returned to the house and to what was left of 
the breakfast. Then we went to the college chapel 

[ 2 3i] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



for prayers. Just after the reading of the lesson 
a tremor was felt through the building. Five hun- 
dred students leaped upon the benches and began to 
rush for the doors; but order was soon restored and 
we listened to a short address to the students." Later 
Dr. Hart and his host walked through different parts 
of the city and saw something of the havoc that had 
been wrought by the earthquake. Hundreds of 
houses and shops had been demolished or badly dam- 
aged and thousands had been rendered homeless. 
Outside of the city railroad bridges had collapsed 
and deep gaps had been made in the earth which in 
some places were miles in length. Though much 
damage had been done in Kioto it was trifling com- 
pared with what some other cities had suffered. 
Nagoya, which they had only left the day before, 
was almost wiped out. Ten thousand people had 
lost their lives and from fifteen to twenty thousand 
were injured. A writer has said: "Because earth- 
quakes and volcanoes have played such a prominent 
part in the making of Japan it is a land of wondrous 
beauty." What a price to pay for a little scenery ! 
At Nagasaki our missionaries, after two interest- 
ing and somewhat exciting weeks in Japan, took 
ship for Shanghai, where they landed on the third 
of November. While in Japan ugly rumours had 
come to them of the unsettled state of Central 
China. They heard of the destruction of several 
[232] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

missions and the martyrdom of a number of foreign 
and native workers. These rumours were confirmed 
upon reaching Shanghai. A wave of virulent hatred 
of the foreigner had formed in the interior Province 
of Hunan and broken with force all along the lower 
Yangtse. They found Shanghai a veritable city of 
refuge. Missionaries from all parts of the empire 
had gathered there to wait until the violence had 
spent itself and they would be permitted to return 
to their respective fields. 

For three months the Canadian contingent were 
compelled to remain in Shanghai, but they were not 
three wasted months. Chinese teachers were at once 
procured and the study of the language was earnestly 
prosecuted. Besides the contact with so many ex- 
perienced missionaries for so long a time could not 
help but be inspiring and profitable. An interest- 
ing incident occurred during the quiet life at Shang- 
hai that changed the domestic affairs of two of the 
members of the party — Dr. Stevenson had won the 
heart of Miss Amelia Brown, and the two were hap- 
pily married by Dr. Hart. Thus early in the history 
of the Canadian Mission did the Woman's Mission- 
ary Society come to the aid of the General Society 
in matters matrimonial — a precedent that was more 
than once followed in after years. 

On the sixteenth of February, 1892, the Cana- 
dian missionaries, with the exception of Mrs. Hart 

[233] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and her daughter — the former of whom had not 
quite recovered from a serious fall — left Shanghai 
on their long, up-river journey to Chengtu. As 
the steamer ascended the Yangtse it was hard for 
the veteran Superintendent to pass by the different 
missions that he had founded, dear to him as his 
own children and to which he had given the best 
years of his life. Old memories like a flood pressed 
upon him. Now and then as the vessel stopped for 
a few minutes at some familiar landing place, an old 
colleague or native Christian who had heard of his 
coming would cross the gangway plank and give 
him a hearty shake of the hand and a fervent God- 
speed. 

From Hankow Dr. Hart proceeded alone to 
Ichang to engage native boats for the remainder of 
the journey. The old boat upon which he travelled 
steamed up the river in a most leisurely way, anchor- 
ing always at night. The officers were as leisurely 
in their ways as was the boat. The captain was 
visible but once or twice during the day and had his 
meals brought to his cabin. The chief officer was 
only seen at the table in the saloon — and then re- 
tired to the restfulness of his room. "The chief en- 
gineer," remarks this missionary critic, "rises at nine, 
takes his toast and coffee at ten, lunches heartily 
at twelve, has toast and coffee again at three and 
dines at seven. The rest of the time he sits in his 

[234] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

room and reads." If it had not been for the faith- 
ful subordinate officers and crew, who were Chinese, 
the company and the passengers would have been in 
a bad way. 

At Ichang Dr. Hart, with very little trouble, 
which was most unexpected, managed to secure two 
fairly good boats for the trip to Chungking, but his 
patience as well as that of the native captains was 
severely tried by the long delayed coming of the 
rest of the party. The trip from Hankow to Ichang 
is generally made in four days, but this time, owing 
to an exasperating stay for a week upon a sand-bar 
in mid-river, it took eleven days. It was the six- 
teenth day of March when the passenger junks hoist- 
ed their huge sails and left Ichang, the last visible 
link that reminded them of home and the comforts 
of civilisation. 

All through the long series of gorges and up the 
rapids the young missionaries were kept on the qui 
vive. Each day brought its own quota of thrills. 
One morning those on Mr. Hartwell's junk heard 
a terrible clamour on the forward deck. An enter- 
prising captain, contrary to river etiquette, was tak- 
ing advantage of a strong wind, to sail past the long 
line of boats waiting for their turn at the rapids. 
This naturally aroused the ire of every other cap- 
tain and his crew. Steering into the eddy the first 
boat that the unscrupulous captain encountered was 

[235] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



Mr. HartwelPs. Then the war began. The men 
on the missionary's boat, armed with long bamboo 
poles, began thrashing their rivals with all their 
might. Crash! crash! crash! went the poles — for- 
tunately missing more often than hitting the poor 
sailors. The crew of the other boat were unable to 
fight back as only by hanging on to their poles could 
they keep their advantage. This they did with great 
pluck. As the excitement increased, one man seizing 
a heavy hand-axe leaped upon the offending boat and 
dealt the foremost man a terrible blow in the small 
of the back. All the while a crowd of men on the 
shore were shouting and jumping in a most frantic 
manner. Which party they were encouraging it was 
hard to tell; but this was soon made apparent, for 
no sooner had the boat of the unscrupulous captain 
passed the bow of Mr. HartwelPs boat, then the 
mob on shore began hurling stones. For a time it 
looked as though boat and crew would be destroyed, 
when suddenly Dr. Hart appeared, and after some 
parleying, induced the ambitious skipper to go back 
and resume his proper place in the line. 

On the eighth day from Ichang an incident oc- 
curred which cast a deep gloom over the party for 
several days. Shortly after anchoring for the night 
one of the crew who had been taken ill was carried 
ashore and laid on an overhanging rock and left to 
die. As the poor fellow was being borne to this 

[236] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

cold and desolate resting place, the men on the boat 
kept up a continuous beating of gongs and firing of 
crackers. Images were brought out and placed at 
the bow, while candles were lit and incense was 
burned before them. This was done to keep the evil 
spirits that might be attracted in the event of the 
man's death from doing harm to the boat and its 
crew. When the missionaries heard of. the fate of 
the sick man they hurried to his side, but nothing 
could be done for him. He had been a confirmed 
opium smoker; the deadly pipe had done its work, 
and now he was paying insulted Nature's last toll. 
While he was dying on the rock above, his old com- 
rades in the boat below, unheeding the warning of 
his example, were courting a similar death as they 
curled themselves up about their tiny lamps upon 
the deck. Since the superstitious crew had succeeded 
in getting the man off from the boat before he died 
and had performed a few religious rites in self-pro- 
tection, what cared they now what happened to him ! 
Not one of them offered to stay with him and attend 
to his last wants. That dark night by the banks of 
the Yangtse marked the vital difference between 
heathenism and Christianity. The cruel heartless- 
ness of the one stood out in sharp contrast to the ten- 
der pitifulness of the other. Until the sailor died 
the missionaries did what they could to relieve his 
suffering and comfort his soul. Dr. Hart, the next 

[237] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



day, bought a small plot of ground and paid a local 
Chinaman sufficient to give the body a decent burial. 

After nearly a month in a cramped and crowded 
native boat, the Canadians hailed with delight the 
sight of Chungking — the half-way place between 
Ichang and Chengtu, where they could have a few 
days' rest and the opportunity of meeting the breth- 
ren of the Methodist Episcopal Mission — the mis- 
sion which Dr. Hart refounded five years before. 

Two more weeks of travel brought the party to 
the beautiful and swiftly-flowing Min River, which 
like a blue thread runs through the heart of Sze- 
chwan and connects with the Yangtse at the city 
of Soochow. The scenery along the Min is most 
romantic and furnishes an uninterrupted succession 
of natural pictures. The missionaries had many 
opportunities of studying at close range the people 
in this most thickly populated part of the province, 
no small number of whom live in boats and subsist 
by fishing. In speaking of this last stage of the 
journey Dr. Hart says: "While taking a little ex- 
ercise upon the bank above our boats, I was attracted 
by twenty or more cormorants sitting upon small 
skiffs which the men row about after the birds, while 
they dive into the river and bring up fish. Two 
or three men were going the rounds of the birds with 
dishes filled with water and to each one they gave 
a generous dash or two of the contents. The tired 

[238] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

birds seemed to enjoy their bath immensely. They 
would stretch out their long necks to the full and 
flap their great wings and then give themselves a 
glorious shake. I had never seen this process of 
cleansing the fishing-birds before, and I judge it was 
a bit of petting as a hunter would pat his dog after 
a good day's hunting. It is no uncommon thing to 
see fishermen carrying their skiffs upon their backs 
from point to point, while the birds sit on top. The 
cormorant is a clumsy, unattractive-looking bird, 
most stupid when on land, but an expert swimmer 
in the water and able to bring up fish weighing two 
pounds or more. While I stood watching the birds 
quite a crowd of men and boys gathered about me 
and curiously inspected my face, hat and clothes. 
They had never seen a foreigner before and were 
amazed when I spoke to them in their own tongue. 
Then came volleys of the queerest questions you ever 
heard. What do you suppose a middle-aged man 
asked me? I am almost ashamed to tell you, but 
it is too good to be kept a secret. He examined 
me pretty thoroughly, except my teeth, and said, 
'Are you a hundred years old?' You can imagine 
my emotions at such an absurd question, for I am 
straight and fat, can walk thirty miles a day, jump 
and hop with any of the young missionaries, and to 
be taken for a centenarian was a little too much. 
He quite wilted when I gave him my age, and he 

[239] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



found himself five years my senior. 'Well,' he said, 
'your beard is white.' The people take me for a 
genuine patriarch and would not be very much sur- 
prised if I were to tell them that I am two hundred 
years old. Buddha is said to have received into 
the priesthood one man two hundred years old. 

"One fellow with a black skin, big mouth and 
small tail tied about his head, with barely a pair of 
loose pants on, came closer than the others — if that 
were at all possible — and asked, 'How far is it to 
your country and how do you go ?' When I told him 
the distance to Shanghai, which is like a foreign city 
to the people of Szechwan, he began to look a little 
sceptical, but when I said that from Shanghai to my 
country was three myriads of li and that the great 
steamer which takes one to it travels twelve hundred 
li a day, the man's astonishment knew no bounds. 
The ignorance of the masses is something appalling, 
and the indifference is more so. What is done in 
Eastern or North China will be known to but 
few out here. No political questions trouble them; 
no questions except the chop sticks and rice bowl, 
and how to fill the bowl, are considered important." 

On the ninth of May, Kiating — the beautiful — 
was reached. Scarcely had Dr. Hart's boat come to 
anchor when the Rev. Olin Cady boarded it and 
gave a hearty welcome to his old friend and super- 
intendent and to his young associates from Canada. 

[240] 



THE FIRST CONTINGENT 

Mr. Cady, whom Dr. Hart had left at Chungking 
five years before, was now residing in Chengtu, in 
connection with the newly-established mission of the 
Methodist Episcopal Church. He accompanied the 
party to Chengtu and most generously offered them 
the use of his house until they had obtained satisfac- 
tory quarters for themselves. On the evening of 
the twenty-first of May, 1892 — three months from 
the time they left Shanghai — they landed in 
Chengtu. Their arrival attracted a large and curi- 
ous crowd. Especially were the people interested in 
the wives of the missionaries, for this was the first 
time in the history of the city that ladies, dressed 
in foreign style, had passed through its streets. 

Dr. Hart pays the following tribute to the young 
men and women whom he had conducted twelve 
thousand miles, by rail, steamer and Chinese junk, 
safely to the field of their life-work: "They are all 
good men and women and have one common aim 
— the glory of God. It has never been my lot be- 
fore to be connected with so many persons so con- 
siderate, so loving and kind to one another, and 
withal so charitable. I pray that this spirit may 
abide and grow. It was no small thing to bring 
out a band of new recruits and take them across the 
Empire of China at this time." 



[241] 



XX 

BEGINNINGS 



XX 



BEGINNINGS 



UNTIL they could secure homes of their own the 
Canadian missionaries gratefully accepted the 
kind offer of Mr. Cady to occupy his house, which 
was a large and roomy one. They arrived in Cheng- 
tu on Saturday night. On Sunday they attended the 
services in the little chapel of the American Mission. 
On Monday their goods — and they were no small 
number — were transferred from the boats to Mr. 
Cady's house a mile or so away. Never had the city 
seen such a moving day and hundreds of interested 
citizens stood along the line of march and watched 
the novel proceedings. For vans and horses there 
were coolies with their long carrying-poles. What 
marvellous strength these coolies possess! One of 
them carried upon his back a box weighing four hun- 
dred and fifty pounds; another trotted off with an 
organ that could not have been less than two hun- 
dred and fifty pounds. 

[245] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



For nearly two weeks Dr. Hart hunted for a 
house to rent. At last he found a commodious one 
in the northeast part of the city, with a large open 
space in the rear, which he thought, with a good 
deal of water and soap and a number of necessary 
repairs, might answer for a time. In two days a 
room was made ready in the old mansion for his 
occupation so that he might better supervise the 
work of renovation. By the end of June all the 
party had moved in except Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson. 
The house contained not only accommodations for 
the five missionaries but also room for a dispensary, 
wards for eight or ten patients, a reading room and 
chapel combined and quarters for servants. 

On the twenty-fourth of June Dr. Hart opened 
the reading-room, which faced upon the public high- 
way. He carefully arranged upon tables different 
kinds of books and periodicals; placed pictures and 
charts about the walls and engaged one of the lit- 
erati of the city to look after them and the sale of 
whatever literature they had in stock the people 
might want. That first night the Book Steward, 
as we shall call him, reported that at least a thou- 
sand persons had dropped in during the day and had 
manifested considerable interest in the new book con- 
cern. It was an auspicious beginning, this first ven- 
ture on the part of the Canadian Mission to touch 

[246] 



BEGINNINGS 



and influence the mind of this great Western 
metropolis. 

On the following Sunday the first religious service 
was held. It was of a semi-private character and 
was conducted in the reading-room. Apart from 
Dr. Hart's teacher, the Book Steward, and the "boy" 
or servant, there were four or five men who had been 
employed about the place and one stranger. Not 
one in the little gathering except the boy had ever 
been in a Christian service before. How ignorant 
and awkward they were, but oh so willing to learn ! 
"None of them could sing," says Dr. Hart. "I had 
to take all the parts myself. I found the Scripture 
lessons for them and tried to teach them how to pray. 
When we came to prayer my teacher who is quite 
a swell and very portly exclaimed, 'And you kneel 
do you?' With a mighty effort he followed the 
example of the others. Such was the nucleus of the 
Canadian Methodist Church in West China!" 

One of the first friendships that Dr. Hart formed 
in Chengtu was with a little boy, seven years of age, 
the son of his next door neighbour. The little fel- 
low came in every day and followed his foreign 
friend around like a pet dog, keeping up an inces- 
sant fire of questions. He was a handsome boy and 
the most precocious native child the doctor had ever 
seen — a veritable Chinese Macaulay. He had a 
knowledge of hundreds of characters. One day he 

[247] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



brought to the missionary a couple of Chinese clas- 
sical works and recited long passages from them. 
This boy later was christened "Lucas," after the 
Rev. J. V. Lucas, D.D., a Methodist minister in 
Canada, who contributed fifty dollars annually for 
some years towards his education. 

On the fourth day of July Dr. Hart, having done 
what he could to make the young missionaries com- 
fortable in their new homes, started for Shanghai to 
escort his wife and daughter up the river. The water 
was so high and the current so swift that his little 
craft made the five hundred miles to Chungking in 
four days — a distance that took four or more weeks 
when travelling in the opposite direction. In five 
days the Yangtse had risen fifty feet and still it was 
rising. One night they tied up at a little village. 
They could see the farmers in feverish haste pulling 
up their corn which was planted along the river bank 
twenty or thirty feet above the level of the water. 
They wondered at their fears — but in forty-eight 
hours the seething floods of the Yangtse had not 
only reached the top of the bank but forty feet 
higher. Under such perilous conditions the boatmen 
could not be persuaded to travel further. For four 
days the little boat and its occupants took shelter 
under a big banyan tree, "while the floods rushed 
and thundered past, boiled over, whirled sidewise 

[248] 



BEGINNINGS 



and backwards, filling every nook and crevice, up- 
rooting trees, carrying away hillsides, houses and 
the suburbs of a dozen cities, besides wrecking scores 
of junks and smaller craft." Gradually the waters 
subsided and the impatient foreigner was permitted 
to continue his journey. With great caution and 
remarkable success the captain piloted the boat down 
the rapids, until after two weeks of one of the most 
thrilling voyages on record, it anchored in the calmer 
waters before Ichang. On the last day of July 
Shanghai was reached and husband and wife and 
daughter were again united. After a few weeks in 
Shanghai and in visiting some of the Central China 
Missions, they turned their faces towards Chengtu, 
reaching their destination about the first of the new 
year. 

During Dr. Hart's absence, just a few days after 
he left Chengtu, the first dark shadow fell upon the 
little mission. The following pathetic letter from 
Dr. Kilborn, dated the eleventh of July, is self- 
explanatory : 

"My heart is well nigh crushed with its load of 
grief as I write. My darling wife was taken from 
me last night, Sunday the tenth, about eleven o'clock. 
The disease was cholera. She was sick only eigh- 
teen hours. On the Saturday previous she was ap- 
parently as well as any member of the party, and 

[249] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



looking forward to many years of service here for 
the Master. All my plans for the dispensary and 
the hospital were invariably made in consultation 
with her. The interests of all our future work were 
hers as well as mine, and in losing her I feel that I 
am crippled one-half. Her faith was simple, but 
bright. Oh, I did think that the Lord would spare 
her for the work's sake, if not for mine. It is hard, 
so hard to bear, but yet we must say, Thy will be 
done, O Lord !' 

"My darling wife and I invariably studied the 
language together, and we had made exactly equal 
progress up to the day of her death, in both reading 
the characters and speaking. We were both plan- 
ning and looking anxiously forward to the time 
when I should be able to begin dispensary work 
and she would assist me in compounding and dis- 
pensing drugs. Now all this is altered, for the Lord 
has taken her." 

Five miles from Chengtu, by the banks of a little 
river, rises a beautiful hill crowned at its summit 
with a grove of waving bamboos. Here amid the 
evergreens is the "God's Acre" of the Canadian 
Methodist Mission. To this hallowed spot one day 
late in January, 1893, the remains of Mrs. Kilborn 
were borne from their temporary resting place. In 
the presence of a few foreigners and many Chinese, 
Dr. Hart explained the comforting doctrines of the 
resurrection and immortality. At the close of the 
[250] 



BEGINNINGS 



service two Buddhist priests who had been impressed 
with what they had seen and heard, lingered behind 
to talk with the Christian missionaries and to receive 
from them that Book which taught such precious 
truths. 



[251] 



XXI 
THE WORK EXPANDING 



XXI 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



NO country in the world needs a physician more 
than does China, for there is no country that 
is more ignorant of the commonest principles of 
hygiene. On every hand as one passes along the 
countryside, or through the crowded streets of the 
city, he is confronted by suffering and disease in 
their saddest, most aggravated and repulsive forms. 
Fevers, cholera, tuberculosis, diphtheria, leprosy, and 
smallpox are frightfully frequent. Half the popu- 
lation, it has been declared, are troubled with skin, 
eye and ear diseases. It is true that native doctors 
are in abundance, and drugs and drug-stores — 
Heaven save the mark! Anybody can be a doctor 
in China. It requires no course of study, no diploma, 
only a fondness for tinkering with the bodies of 
others and mixing up concoctions — and what concoc- 
tions! The prescribed remedy is often worse than 
the disease. Here are some samples: For a fever, 

[255] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the skins of snakes or frogs caught at high noon 
on the fifth day of the fifth moon, dried and pow- 
dered and administered alone or in combination with 
other ingredients. For broken bones, a poultice of 
greens or powdered drugs and some internal medi- 
cine to makes the bones knit. For a tonic, take a 
mixture of tiger claws or bones — for the tiger is the 
strongest beast in China and the bones are the strong- 
est parts of his anatomy, or if that remedy is not 
available take the pure tincture of monkey which 
is so efficacious that in a few days it can make a 
man who is weak in the legs as active and as sin- 
ewy as his simian brother. These few examples of 
native prescriptions are sufficient to indicate the 
crying need in China for the introduction of modern 
methods in surgery and materia medica. What un- 
limited opportunities this poor quack-ridden country 
offers to the scientific medical man who is anxious 
to make the most of his life and accomplish the most 
in helping to reduce the sum total of human pain 
and suffering. 

From the beginning in connection with its work 
in West China, the Canadian Methodist Church has 
realised the need of placing special emphasis upon 
medical evangelism. In the pioneer party there were 
two clergymen and two physicians — an equal pro- 
portion of physicians to clergymen which the Mis- 
sionary Society has ever since endeavoured to main- 

[256] 



THE WORK EXPANDING 

tain. "The thought was," writes Dr. Kilborn, 
"that the direct preaching of the Word should al- 
ways be accompanied, if possible, by the practical 
benevolence of the medical missionary." 

On the morning of the third of November, 1892 — 
one year from the date that our missionaries landed 
in Shanghai — the first dispensary in Chengtu was 
opened. In the forenoon of the first day eighteen 
patients received treatment, and they kept coming 
in such increasing numbers each dispensary day, that 
soon fifty and sixty persons were being daily treated. 
Cases appeared which could not be satisfactorily 
dealt with in the dispensary, and so the doctors were 
obliged to press into service two additional rooms, 
in one of which they placed men and in the other 
women. It was not long before they had half a 
dozen patients in each ward and several successful 
operations had been performed. 

Among the dispensary patients there appeared one 
day an old man of sixty, totally blind in both eyes. 
For some years he had suffered from cataract. He 
was put into the little, improvised hospital and op- 
erated upon. After a few days the bandages were 
removed. He began to gaze at his hands and then 
at the windows. Then he looked at his bed and at 
the beds of the other patients in the ward. When 
Dr. Kilborn approached him he exclaimed, "Stand 
back, doctor, I can see you there, back a little fur- 

[257] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



ther, there! I can see you plainly now!" His joy 
knew no bounds. With physical light came spir- 
itual light. It was the custom to hold services in 
the wards, to distribute tracts and when possible to 
speak daily to each patient about the Great Physi- 
cian. On being dismissed from the hospital, the old 
man that "once was blind" put down his name as an 
inquirer. He attended church regularly and fre- 
quently brought a friend with him. Up and down 
the streets of Chengtu he went entering a tea-house 
here and a home there — everywhere telling all who 
cared to listen the story of his wonderful cure. 

But the work of the foreign medical missionary is 
not confined to the dispensary and the hospital ward. 
He has many calls to visit people in their homes. If 
the patient be a man there is usually little or no 
difficulty in treating him, but if the patient be a 
woman and the physician a man, sometimes the most 
unreasonable — and amusing — obstacles are put in 
the way of an intelligent diagnosis of the case. 

A very urgent call came to one of our physicians 
in Central China to visit the home of an important 
and wealthy official living several miles in the coun- 
try. A sedan chair with six bearers and a petty offi- 
cer in charge, were sent to bring him. The doctor 
was told that the wife of the official was very ill, 
that her life was despaired of, and that they must 
hurry. Away the chair-bearers started at a dog-trot 

[2 5 8i ' 




CANADIAN METHODIST HOSPITAL AT CHENGTU 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



which they kept up to the end of the journey, so 
anxious were they to bring relief to their mistress. 
Upon arriving at the residence the doctor quickly 
alighted and entered the guest hall. He at once 
asked to see the patient. In great surprise they told 
him that it was contrary to Chinese etiquette for any 
man outside the family to enter a lady's chamber; 
the "Honorable Foreign Doctor" must prescribe for 
her without seeing her. This the doctor said he 
could not do. After a long and unsuccessful parley 
in attempting to overcome established custom and 
prejudice, the doctor ordered his chair and without 
giving any treatment, returned home. The next day 
a still more urgent call was sent by the official to 
the doctor to come and save his wife's life. The 
doctor at first declined but finally consented to go 
upon the assurance being given him that he would 
be allowed to see the patient. When he reached the 
house the women of the establishment could not be 
persuaded to give up their prejudices and he was 
flatly refused admission to the sick-chamber. Again 
he was on the point of leaving when it occurred to 
him that by a little diplomacy he might be able to 
make a diagnosis. He suggested to the female at- 
tendants that since he could not see the sick lady that 
they make a hole in the partition of her room and 
that through this hole she might be permitted to 
stick out her tongue and extend her hand that her 

[259] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



pulse might be counted. To this arrangement the 
women finally agreed and the doctor succeeded in 
getting the symptoms of the case. Thus the rigid 
Chinese law of sex was scrupulously observed and 
the Chinese "face" was saved. 

While the new Canadian Mission placed a strong 
emphasis upon the medical side of their work they 
by no means minimised the importance of the educa- 
tional side. As the physicians in the field had dreams 
of a great central hospital some day in Chengtu, so 
the teachers had dreams of a great central college 
or university. The first step in the educational pro- 
gramme of the mission was taken early in 1893, at 
the time of the Chinese new year, when a day school 
— the first day school in Chengtu — was opened. At 
the end of the first week twenty scholars were en- 
rolled and at the end of the first month the number 
had risen to forty. Dr. Hart, Miss Hart, and a 
native teacher undertook the work of instruction to 
which they devoted two or three hours each day. 
How eagerly and quickly these bright Szechwan chil- 
dren mastered the text books that were prescribed 
for their study and the Christian hymns and pas- 
sages of Scripture that were given them to memor- 
ise! They took special delight in the singing exer- 
cises and some really fine voices were discovered 
among them. From the new school the first choir 
[260] 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



of the chapel was formed and from its classes re- 
cruits from time to time were found. 

But all the pupils attending the school were by 
no means children. There was no small sprinkling 
of men — and, wonder of wonders, some of these men 
were of the proud literati class who were anxious to 
learn English — men, with long, sedate faces, set off 
with huge tortoise-shell goggles, who, though they 
may have had a profound knowledge of the books of 
Confucius and Mencius, were so ignorant of geog- 
raphy that they did not know even the names of 
the provinces of China. The growing work of the 
Mission in the chapel, the dispensary and the school, 
was greatly hindered for the lack of accommodation. 
So crowded were the Sunday services that the gates 
of the compound often had to be locked to keep the 
people out. Dr. Hart, after some weeks' search, 
managed to lease a property which he thought might 
prove suitable for the needs of the Mission for some 
years. It surrounded a large temple — and this fact 
gave rise to trouble later on. A dwelling was com- 
menced at once. No new building ever attracted 
more attention from the people of a city than did 
this one. Everybody who heard of it wanted to see 
it and the white-haired foreigner who was in charge 
of its construction. It was estimated that an average 
of three thousand persons came each day into the 
compound to gratify their curiosity. Old men ac- 

[261] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



companied by their toddling grandsons would come 
and stand for hours awaiting recognition from the 
doctor and the chance of a word with him. Ladies 
dressed in silks and satins, sparkling like June but- 
terflies, brought their radiant daughters and chat- 
tered away about the wonderful house. So friendly 
was the chief priest of the temple towards the for- 
eigner that he invited the carpenters employed on 
the building to use the large room containing the 
gods for a workshop. 

But the Mission was not permitted long to remain 
in the quiet possession of this new site. One day a 
mob, jealous for the prestige of the temple and its 
gods, gathered and destroyed all the building mate- 
rial on the ground. Dr. Hart was advised by the 
city authorities to surrender the property and buy 
elsewhere. In the spring of 1893 a mucn larger and 
finer property, by the city wall and adjacent to the 
East Military Parade Ground, was purchased. As 
the officials, at that time, would not allow houses 
of foreign style to be constructed, the old Chinese 
buildings that came with the land were remodelled 
into dwellings for the missionaries and a large school 
for boys and girls. The next year two smaller com- 
pounds were added to the property. Upon this new 
site were erected a charming little chapel with a 
seating capacity of three hundred — the gift of Mr. 
Jairus Hart of Halifax, Nova Scotia — a book room 
[262] 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



and a hospital. The chapel was dedicated by the 
Superintendent in February, 1894. So interested 
were the people in the erection of the building and 
so anxious for preaching services to begin that when 
they heard that it was completed, they gathered in 
large numbers upon the street before it and pounded 
upon the outer gates for admission. It was not until 
Dr. Hart went out to them and promised that it 
would be opened to the public on the following Sun- 
day that quiet was restored. 

In 1892 an appeal had been sent by the mission- 
aries on the field to the Missionary Board for twen- 
ty-five more men by 1900. In response to this ap- 
peal the Rev. James Endicott, B.A., and Dr. H. 
Mather Hare were appointed. They arrived in 
Shanghai in September, 1893, where they were met 
by Dr. Kilborn, who had come to take them up the 
river. Accompanying the new reinforcements from 
Shanghai were Dr. Retta Gifford and Miss Sara 
Brackbill of the Woman's Missionary Society. The 
trip through the Yangtse gorges was an unusually 
long and trying one. The party had more than its 
share of accidents. Several times their boats ran on 
the rocks or the ropes broke and they drifted help- 
lessly down stream; finally one boat became a 
wreck. In writing of the wreck, Dr. Kilborn says, 
"The larger of the two boats — the one we are all 
living in — struck a rock, filled in about fifteen min- 

[263] 



VIRGIL C. HART 

utes, and sank; not, however, before we were able to 
get near a sloping, sandy bank, and get ashore our- 
selves, along with all easily movable articles and 
furniture from our rooms. Darkness closed in, and 
we realised that we were shipwrecked. Providen- 
tially, our small houseboat was right at hand, so we 
were able to have a sheltered sleeping-place. Next 
day, our cargo of boxes was slowly fished out of 
the sunken boat, and in forty-eight hours after the 
accident, the old craft again stood upright on the 
water, looking not much the worse for the dip, 
though inside she was the picture of desolation. In 
the meantime we had purchased a quantity of coal, 
built fires on the sand, set up drying poles and com- 
menced drying bedding, clothing and books." 
Everything in the boxes were soaked with water, 
and much of the stores was a total loss, while nearly 
the whole stock of books was ruined. 

Upon the arrival of the new missionaries it was 
decided to open work in Kiating, a city second in 
importance only to the provincial capital. Kiating 
is one hundred and twenty miles to the south of 
Chengtu with a population of something over sixty 
thousand. It is a great centre of the silk and white- 
wax industries and only a few miles from a large 
salt-well district. Its close proximity to Mount 
Omei makes it a stopping place each year for hun- 
dreds of thousands of pilgrims, giving the Christian 

[264] 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



missionary unique opportunities for sowing the Gos- 
pel seed. Dr. Kilborn, who was soon to be married 
to Dr. Retta GifTord, was placed in charge of the 
new mission in March, 1894. A house was rented 
and an adjoining compound was secured for a hospi- 
tal and dispensary. The doctor preached on Sun- 
days and carried on his medical work during the 
week. 

In the autumn of this year Mrs. Hart and her 
daughter returned to Canada. Dr. Hart accom- 
panied them as far as Shanghai. Keenly though he 
had felt other separations from his wife and family 
none was so trying as this one. It was a very lonely 
man that made his way back again up the river. 

Shortly after Dr. Hart's return to Chengtu a very 
exciting incident occurred which illustrates the 
peculiar difficulties under which our medical mis- 
sionaries laboured in West China in those early days 
and the personal danger that they incurred in the 
event of a failure to cure. Dr. Hare, who had taken 
up his abode with Dr. Hart in the compound, was 
called, early one evening, to visit a woman who was 
in a very critical condition. The call came too late 
to save her life; however, he went and did what he 
could for her. Towards midnight a messenger came 
to the Mission saying that the woman had not spoken 
for quite a while and her husband was very anxious. 
Hurrying on his clothes, with a stout stick under 

[265] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



his arm for the dogs on the street, accompanied by 
his dispenser and teacher, he started for the home 
of the sick woman. Upon arriving at the house he 
examined her and found that she was dead and had 
been dead for some time. Up to this moment the 
husband of the woman — Chwang by name — had 
been very polite and had expressed regret for put- 
ting the doctor to so much trouble. "But," says 
the doctor, "as soon as I told the dispenser that the 
woman was dead, the man's whole demeanour 
changed. At once he sprang and double-barred the 
only door by which I could go out. At first I paid 
no attention and went on making preparations to 
leave. On asking the man to open the door, he 
placed himself squarely before it in a defiant atti- 
tude. Three times I asked him to open the door, but 
there was no effort to do so. I then got cross and 
took hold of him with the intention of giving him 
a good shaking, but on the dispenser saying some- 
thing to him which I did not catch, he opened the 
door. We walked out of the courtyard and on to 
the street leisurely, not thinking that there was such 
a surprise party in store for us. We had not gone 
far before the husband of the dead woman ran after 
us, calling out loudly. Catching up with us, he at 
once took hold of me. I told him I did not want to 
talk then, but for him to come to the hospital the fol- 
lowing day and I would discuss the matter with him. 
[266] 




GREAT EAST STREET, CHEXGTU 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



He paid no attention to this whatever, but continued 
to hold me. A number of men, hearing his cries, 
came to his assistance. I shook myself clear of 
them and attempted to walk on, but they would not 
allow it. At one time there were three men clinging 
to me. The little teacher did his best to keep the 
peace, but all his efforts were unavailing. At this 
point two men snatched at my stick and though I 
kept hold of it for awhile I could not struggle with 
them and keep my eye upon the others also, so let 
the stick go. Chwang then caught me by the collar 
of my shirt and refused to let me go, so I had to 
chuck him under the chin pretty solidly to make him 
do so. Just then another one of the men hit me 
behind the head, knocking my cap off, and as he 
passed me I struck him, about three-quarter reach, 
and knocked him across the street. All this time the 
crowd was increasing fast and cries of 'Strike the 
foreigner!' 'Kill the foreigner!' were frequent. 
Seeing that the crowd was ready for anything, and 
I was single-handed and weaponless, I concluded to 
make a break for the hospital and put my conclu- 
sion into practice at once. The whole mob, number- 
ing at this time over a hundred, I should think, 
yelling, ran as hard as they could after me. But I 
soon saw that I had the best of them at that game. 
Getting near to the man carrying my instruments, 
I called to him to run hard and get the gate on the 

[267] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



street open. But the old gateman was slow — and 
our urgency seemed to make him slower still. By 
the time the last bar was drawn, I threw myself 
against the gate, bursting it in and almost falling 
upon the gateman. I had not time to turn round 
and close the gate before several of the foremost pur- 
suers threw themselves against it, and unaided I 
could not shut it. I caught Chwang and half- 
dragged, half-carried him through the side-gate, in- 
tending to keep him until the morning, but more and 
more men coming in, I thought it best to let him 
go and set to work to get the others out. Making a 
rush at them they broke and ran, and I at once 
slammed the gates together. I came up to the 
house and washed the blood out of my eye that had 
been cut, got a drink, then went back and opened the 
gate and went out on the street, but I could not see 
any one. I found the gateman had retired to his 
room and was almost frightened to death." 

Dr. Hart heard Dr. Hare go out of the house on 
that memorable night and come back later, but he 
did not learn of the doctor's adventure until the next 
morning. He at once sent his card to the Yamen 
and Chwang was arrested, but not until he had done 
untold mischief to the Mission. All through the city 
there circulated the story that the foreign doctor had 
been the cause of his wife's death, and for some time 
her dead and naked body was exposed in front of 
[268] 



THE WORK EXPANDING 



his house, for all the curious to gaze upon, as evi- 
dence that the foreign doctor had poisoned her, for 
some horrible purpose of his own. The object of 
Chwang was very apparent — it was to extort black- 
mail. 

A few days after Dr. Hart's return from Shanghai 
the annual meeting of the Mission was held. It was 
arranged that Dr. and Mrs. Kilborn, who had been 
but a year at Kiating, be stationed at Chengtu, 
while Dr. Hart, Mr. and Mrs. Endicott and Dr. 
Hare should go to Kiating. On the twenty-ninth 
day of May, 1895, Dr. Hart and his party reached 
Kiating, but their occupation of the new mission was 
of brief duration. While they were engaged in mov- 
ing their goods from the boat to the new home little 
did they dream of what was transpiring in the city 
which they had just left; but they soon learned. 



[269] 



XXII 
A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 



"We are sorry and almost dazed at the sudden blow that 
has come upon us, but our permanent victories often spring 
from temporary defeats." 

Letter to Dr. Sutherland, June 2, i8g$. 



XXII 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 



ON the evening of the thirty-first of May, two 
days after Dr. Hart's arrival in Kiating, a 
little cripple boy who had been a patient of Dr. Kil- 
born in the hospital at Chengtu, knocked at the mis- 
sionary's door and told him a most startling tale. 
He said that he had just come from Chengtu and 
that every mission house in the city had been de- 
stroyed, but that all the missionaries, as far as he 
knew, were safe; that the rioting had commenced 
late in the afternoon two days before. He had es- 
caped from the burning hospital, made his way by 
friendly aid to the Chengtu anchorage, found a boat 
bound for Kiating and had come to tell him the 
news and warn him and the other missionaries in 
the city of possible danger. Next morning messen- 
gers came from the scene of the riots with further 
details and with a letter from Mr. Hartwell, written 
in pencil upon a long, narrow strip of brown Chinese 

[273] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



paper. The letter was dated the thirtieth of May, 
and read as follows: 

"You may have heard of the great misfortune that 
has befallen the mission property. It is not confined 
to our mission, although it began there. Eleven 
places, at least, have been utterly destroyed. But 
for details. The fifth of this Chinese month was 
a feast day. The parade ground was crowded. 
Everything was quiet until the time to go home had 
arrived. About half past four I went across the 
street to get Geraldine, who was playing with Dr. 
Stevenson's children, and brought her home. When 
I went over there were twenty or thirty people try- 
ing to look through the gates. They ran after me 
to our place. When I got inside some one kicked 
the gate and two or three stones were thrown over it. 
A crowd kept gathering on the street and the shout- 
ing increased. Men were sent to the Yamen, and 
after awhile Yamen runners came, but did nothing. 
Soon the gates (of the compound opposite) were 
broken down, and the crowd began to enter, but Dr. 
Kilborn and Dr. Stevenson rushed forward, shot 
their guns into the air and the crowd rushed pell- 
mell in both directions. They then stood on the 
street and kept things quiet, expecting every mo- 
ment the official would come with more runners. As 
the darkness was coming on, the runners persuaded 
them to go in while they would disperse the people. 
But the crowd returned and were entering in again. 
Upon the two doctors appearing they fled. By this 
time a few men had gathered on the other side of 

[274] 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 

the premises and were entering the hospital gates. 
The doctors found themselves between two fires and 
their families unprotected. They now sought a way 
of escape. After a time of great distraction they 
decided to make a bolt through the gates of the hos- 
pital compound. The rioters had made a hole in 
one of the gates, through which they crawled. The 
mob seemed so surprised when they came out that 
it did not at first take in the situation, and so the 
doctors and their families got away safely though 
the mob began to cry almost immediately, 'beat' 
and 'kill.' They tried to enter several places in 
the neighbourhood, but were repulsed. They went 
to the soldiers' barracks, but were sent away with 
curses — one of the soldiers kicking Mrs. Stevenson 
as she was leaving. Crossing the parade ground they 
reached the city wall and from there could see the 
flames of the buildings. After wandering about un- 
til nearly midnight, they finally made their way to 
the China Inland Mission. 

"In the meantime the mob was making quick 
work of the dwellings and hospital opposite. The 
crashing of glass, the smashing of partitions, the 
crackling of the fire, and above all the inhuman din 
of human voices was something indescribable. You 
can imagine our feelings for we expected a visit 
from the mob every moment. Then the officials 
came — oh! what a relief it was — the Fu and the 
Hsien, with about two dozen runners. They slowly 
walked along our street and entered the place. The 
din stopped and the Yamen runners seized a few 
people. Shortly the Fu came out, walked a little 

[275] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



distance, got into his chair, and he and his retinue 
departed. Scarcely had he gone when the work 
of destruction began with renewed energy. As soon 
as the Fu departed I began to think of a refuge. We 
finally were taken into Mr. Fan's house — over the 
wall at the back. This was about ten o'clock. At 
midnight the crowd dispersed. At four in the morn- 
ing we arose and went back to our house. At five 
the rioting began again over the way. I sent for 
chairs and Mrs. Hartwell and the children started 
for the 'Pearly Sand' street (where the property 
of the Woman's Missionary Society was). Mrs. 
Hartwell had but just gone when bang! bang! went 
the stones at our gate. I had only time to get some 
silver and run. Fortunately I got into Mr. Fan's 
house without any one seeing me. The mob, a min- 
ute later, entered and before noon everything was 
levelled. The destruction was complete. I remained 
like a prisoner until evening and then started for 
the Magistrate's Yamen, where I found all the mis- 
sionaries except those of the Methodist Episcopal 
Mission. 

"About ten o'clock in the morning the mob came 
to Tearly Sand' street and gutted the buildings. 
Mrs. Hartwell and the two ladies of the Woman's 
Missionary Society escaped over the side wall and 
secured chairs for the China Inland Mission. They 
had scarcely arrived at the Mission when the mob 
appeared. Mr. and Mrs. Cormack, Mrs. Hart- 
well and Bertha, Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson got away 
in chairs, but before the others could start the mob 
rushed in. Dr. and Mrs. Kilborn, the two ladies 

[276] 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 

of the Woman's Missionary Society, Geraldine and 
Mr. Vale escaped by climbing the back wall. They 
entered a neighbour's house and gave him thirty 
ounces of silver for a small room. (Here behind the 
thick curtains of a bed they hid for three hours, not 
daring to look nor even speak.) At evening our 
party arrived at the Yamen. Shortly after I came 
the Methodist Episcopal friends arrived. Their 
place had also been levelled ; even the back wall was 
carried away. 

"Things are suspicious around the Yamen, so we 
do not know what will happen next. There is no 
doubt but that the officials have given full license 
to burn and plunder. So far no lives lost. 

"All the Roman Catholic property is destroyed. 
Two priests arrived late last night. Wild rumours 
are afloat. There is no certainty when we can leave. 
There is a rumour that no foreigner will be allowed 
to leave the city — soldiers have been stationed out- 
side. There may be no truth in it. We are all well 
at present. We imagine this is a provincial matter, 
and trust that you will not meet with any mishaps. 
All we have is on our backs. I saved over two hun- 
dred taels of silver, and have the draft, so we are 
all right. Dr. Kilborn and Dr. Stevenson had no 
time to save anything." 

Though the missionaries in Chengtu had escaped 
the fury of the mob they were now at the mercy of 
the officials. For ten days eighteen persons — six 
of them babes — lived in a few small rooms, not 

[277] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



knowing what was to be done with them. In the 
Yamen courtyard were encamped sixty soldiers. 
The magistrate pretended that if their whereabouts 
were known to the people he would be unable any 
longer to protect them. They had one great com- 
fort — the native Christians. They secretly visited 
them, ministered to their wants as best they could 
and kept them informed as to what was going on. 
The fidelity of these native Christians was beautiful 
and completely disproved the frequent charge that 
Chinese only become members of Christian churches 
for the living they can get out of them. Some of 
the little party became seriously ill in the Yamen. 
There were no medicines and the heat was intense, 
but a kind providence brought them through. 

During their imprisonment Dr. Kilborn and Dr. 
Stevenson were brought to trial before the magis- 
trate. They were charged with having drugged and 
murdered Chinese children in order that they might 
use their hearts and eyes and other parts of their 
bodies as medicine. A glass jar of stewed cherries, 
looted from some missionary's store-room, was ex- 
hibited, accompanied by the loud announcement of 
one of the accusers that they were babies' eyes. A 
boy, stupid and dazed, was brought into court. It 
was said that he had been found in a tin-lined box 
under the chapel floor, where he had been placed 
after being drugged by the foreign doctors. Human 

[278] 



A BOLT FROM THE. BLUE 

bones were produced as evidences of the horrible 
practices of the missionaries. These bones were 
afterwards discovered to be parts of the skeleton 
of a Roman Catholic bishop who had been martyred 
by the Chinese seventy years before. The leaders 
of the mob had taken them from their resting place 
in the cathedral and carried them through the streets 
of Chengtu, crying, "See ! here are the bones of some 
of the people the missionaries have murdered. We 
have just taken them from under the houses of the 
foreign devils." 

Dr. Kilborn and Dr. Stevenson listened patiently 
to all these ridiculous charges, boldly affirmed their 
innocence and demanded a safe passage for them- 
selves and all the foreign missionaries down the 
river. On the tenth day, the magistrate stealthily 
came into their quarters and in a whisper announced 
that arrangements had been made for their journey 
to Chungking. "Be prepared," he said, "to go to 
the boats at twelve o'clock to-night. Don't tell even 
your servants !" At midnight precisely, sedan chairs 
were brought quietly into the courtyard and the 
worn-out little band of foreigners were hurried into 
them and out of the Yamen, through the deserted 
streets of the city, through the great East Gate, and 
on for a mile to where they found a fleet of ten 
small boats waiting by the river's edge. The soldier- 
escort occupied seven of the boats; the official in 

[279] 



VIRGIL Q . HART 



charge occupied one; into the remaining two boats 
were huddled seventeen foreign adults with their 
eleven children, besides the native crew, six servants 
and two soldiers. No tin of sardines was ever more 
closely packed than these two Chinese boats. For 
ten days, under the most barbarous and unsanitary 
conditions, the refugees lived and suffered until 
Chungking was reached. Here they were joyfully 
received by the missionaries and other foreign resi- 
dents, clothed and cared for until boats were hired 
to take them to Ichang. On the fourth of July — 
five weeks after the riots — they reached Shanghai. 

Upon hearing of the troubles in Chengtu, Dr. 
Hart sent a messenger with a letter to Mr. Hartwell 
and with some comforts such as condensed milk for 
the babies and a few medicines. He advised Mr. 
and Mrs. Endicott to leave Kiating immediately for 
Chungking. To them were entrusted most of the 
money of the mission treasury, leases of property 
and other valuable documents. 

For two or three days Dr. Hart and Dr. Hare 
pursued the Wilson policy of "watchful waiting." 
Rumours came to them of the destruction of a dozen 
different missions in the province — Protestant and 
Roman Catholic — and of marvellous escapes not 
only from angry mobs in the cities, but from prowl- 
ing gangs of robbers along the line of flight. They 
hoped against hope that Kiating might escape, but 

[280] 




THE MISSION PROPERTY AT KIATING 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 

on the morning of the fourth of June, placards were 
discovered posted all over the city stating that all 
foreign places would be attacked on the morrow. 
"About eleven o'clock to-day," writes Dr. Hart in 
his journal, "suspicious crowds found their way into 
our courts. I got them out twice and had the gate 
bolted. We threw together a quantity of things and 
about two o'clock sent them to a boat at the West 
Gate. We soon after left by the back way and got 
to the boat with little trouble — few seeing us." 

That night the mission houses in Kiating were 
looted, but the two missionaries were safe in their 
boat and on their way to a place of safety. 

Like a bolt from the blue came these riots of 1895 
— and yet they were but the culmination of a spirit of 
hostility to foreigners that had been growing through 
the years in West China, and which had been more 
or less manifest at times, particularly in the larger 
cities. 

For some months previous to the disturbances 
rudeness had been displayed by many of the Chi- 
nese in Chengtu towards the missionaries, and scur- 
rilous remarks had been heard by them as they passed 
through the streets. So frequent and pronounced 
were these manifestations of hostility latterly that 
the ladies of the mission were afraid to walk upon 
the streets alone and when obliged to leave their 
compounds always took closed chairs. More than 

[281] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



once had the authorities of the city been appealed 
to to issue a proclamation, forbidding the use of 
abusive language towards foreigners and announc- 
ing the fact that the missionaries were not in China 
for any hostile purpose, but for the good of the peo- 
ple. The officials not only ignored these appeals, 
but openly incited the people against the foreigners. 
On the second day of the riots in Chengtu, one of 
the officials — a taotai in rank — issued the following 
statement : 

"At the present time we have ample evidence that 
foreigners deceive and kidnap small children. You 
soldiers and people must not be disturbed and flur- 
ried. When the cases are brought before us, we 
certainly will not be lenient with them." 

A day or two before the riots there appeared the 
following placard: 

"Notice is hereby given that at the present time 
foreign barbarians are hiring evil characters to steal 
small children that they may extract oil from them 
for their use. I have a female servant named Li 
who has personally seen this done. I therefore ex- 
hort you good people not to allow your children to 
go out. I hope that you will act in accordance with 
this." 

No wonder there followed a riot. Here is a 
placard that was posted all over the city the day 
after the riots in Chengtu : 
[282] 



A BOLT FROM THE BLUE 

"At the present time when Japan has usurped 
Chinese territory, you English, French and Ameri- 
cans have looked on with your hands in your sleeves. 
If in the future you wish to preach your doctrines 
in China, you must drive the Japanese back to their 
own country, then you will be allowed to preach 
your holy Gospel throughout the country without 
let or hindrance." 

The war which China at that time was waging 
with Japan no doubt helped to intensify the bit- 
terness of the people towards foreigners, but the re- 
sponsibility for the troubles in West China must 
largely be placed at the door of the Viceroy — a pro- 
nounced anti-foreigner — and some of the officials. 



[283] 



XXIII 
THE APPEAL UNTO CAESAR 



XXIII 



THE APPEAL UNTO CESAR 



CHUNGKING was full of excitement when Dr. 
Hart and Dr. Hare arrived from Kiating. 
Every day brought news of further uprisings not 
only in Szechwan, but in other provinces; fugitive 
missionaries were continually coming in from the 
unsettled districts and hurrying on by native boat 
to Shanghai. The officials of the city appeared 
greatly worried at the outlook. They declared that 
it would be impossible for them to maintain order 
when the students — always a troublesome lot — 
would gather for the annual examinations in a few 
days. The British consul had telegraphed Peking to 
see if the examinations might not be dropped for 
that year; but as the telegraph lines had been tam- 
pered with no reply had as yet been received. The 
consul with half a dozen foreigners belonging to the 
Imperial Customs went about armed. They had ar- 
ranged among themselves, in the event of an attack, 

[287] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



to assemble at one of the compounds and fight it out. 
An invitation had been extended to any of the mis- 
sionaries who were in fighting mood to make their 
way to the appointed place. 

For two weeks Dr. Hart and Dr. Hare took up 
their quarters in a large passenger boat, moored near 
the pontoon of the Customs. Here from day to day 
they closely watched developments in the hope that 
the situation might clear sufficiently for them to 
return to their work. But the situation did not 
clear and they were urged by the British consul to 
follow the other missionaries to Shanghai. Before 
leaving Chungking there was a conference of the 
missionaries and other foreigners and a paper was 
drawn up to be presented to both the British and 
American Ministers at Peking, stating their griev- 
ances and demanding immediate redress. Dr. Hart 
was commissioned to go to Peking and represent the 
petitioners. At Ichang, Hankow and Shanghai there 
were similar conferences and similar papers were 
drawn up. 

In a letter to Dr. Sutherland, dated at Ichang, 
July 4, 1895, Dr. Hart says: 

"Our party, except Dr. Hare and myself, are in 

Shanghai, and we hope to join them within a week, 

when all our claims will be made out and presented 

for payment. We shall include the original cost of 

[288] 



THE APPEAL UNTO CAESAR 

building, repairs and oversight in construction, and 
time to rebuild, also all our enforced travelling ex- 
penses, furniture, etc. 

"Mrs. Stevenson was rather ill when she went 
down the river, so was Mrs. Hartwell. No ladies 
will go back to Szechwan for a year at least. 

"We hope to return by November next, and begin 
the work of reconstruction. Our claims will not be 
much under twenty thousand taels (eighteen thou- 
sand dollars). Of course our plan is to rebuild at 
once. 

"I am going from Shanghai to Peking, not only to 
press a full settlement of our claims before the min- 
isters, but to present a petition to their Excellencies 
for the purpose of having radical changes made, and 
punishment meted out to the guilty officials, as well 
as to the ringleaders of the riots. 

"We need our treaty rights stated so clearly that 
both officials and people cannot err. We want a 
Commission of Inquiry to sit at Chengtu, and there 
see the guilty brought to justice. My petition cov- 
ers all this ground and has the English consul's (of 
Chungking) approval. I have just held a confer- 
ence with the English consul and the Commissioner 
of Customs of this place, and they both heartily ap- 
prove of such a course; and would go further, that 
a Consular Agent reside at Chengtu, and that trade 
be opened to Sui Foo, Kiating and even Chengtu, 
if warranted. I shall urge especially these latter 
points upon the attention of Minister Denby, of 
Peking, who is a personal friend of mine. 

"It is imperative that something be done at once 

[289] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



to secure our position in Szechwan, or we may be 
subjected again to all sorts of indignities. Now is 
the time to strike. The riots may work out for us 
great and lasting good. I shall keep you well in- 
formed of all steps taken. We may be obliged 
to do things more independently of the Society than 
we could wish, but we cannot delay without jeopard- 
ising great interests. In going to Peking I am speak- 
ing for the whole body of missionaries in Szechwan, 
and, if successful, for all China. 

"I hope that you will keep me well advised as to 
the wishes of the Board. Don't take any back track. 
Pray for us, and as sure as our cause is just and for 
the good of this people, it must win." 

In a second letter to Dr. Sutherland, written from 
Shanghai, Dr. Hart says: 

"I hope that you will urge the Canadian Govern- 
ment to stir in the matter. It is not in a vindictive 
spirit that we are acting, but to rescue China from 
the greater perils in store for her if such proceed- 
ings are not stopped. Mob violence has been chronic 
with her for forty years; it is growing and becom- 
ing one of the chief features of her action towards 
all foreigners. The officials are our enemies and 
have been directly or indirectly responsible for most 
of our troubles. We are anxious to bring them to 
time while this grave affair is pending. A money 
settlement only will not help us for future work. 
We must be respected and be treated as men if we 
are to be successful." 
[290] 




DR. AND MRS. HART AND THEIR DAUGHTER 



THE APPEAL UNTO C^SAR 

On the evening of the eighteenth of July — fifty 
days from the outbreak at Chengtu, Dr. Hart and 
Dr. Hare put out to sea on the little steamer 
Wuchang bound for Peking. At noon on the second 
day they sighted the Shangtung Promonotory, which 
like a great index finger points towards Korea. Off 
the port bow they saw the low island of Liu-Kong- 
Tao, the scene of the great naval fight between Japan 
and China six months before. Here the Chinese 
Admiral Ting made a gallant stand against the 
Japanese Admiral Ito. Day after day the battle 
waged, when Ito, who had been a friend and great 
admirer of Ting and knew his courage, saw that the 
Chinese could not hold out much longer, he wrote 
a letter to Ting beseeching him to come over to the 
Japanese until the close of the war. But Ting, 
although in terrible straits, declined the well-meant 
invitation and continued the contest. A few days 
later he took poison, as did his second and third 
officers in command and thus perished the naval 
hopes of China. 

Chefoo, with its commodious harbour, numerous 
shipping and interesting foreign settlement, was the 
first port of call. Long before the steamer came to 
anchor a fleet of clumsy-looking rowboats put off 
from the shore and just as a boat reached the middle 
of the steamer a brawny man would throw up a 
long pole with an iron hook at the end and swing 

[291] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



himself clear of his little craft to the steamer's deck. 
This feat was done by a dozen or more enterprising 
as well as athletic fellows who had come aboard to 
secure guests for certain native hotels which they 
represented. 

On the fourth day from Shanghai they entered 
the narrow and tortuous Peiho River and dropped 
anchor off Taku with its historic fortifications. Here 
from the deck of the steamer Dr. Hart got his first 
glimpse of a Chinese railroad. He says, "We could 
actually see a railroad depot, and engines and cars 
coming and going, and hear the bells and an occa- 
sional toot. Can it be that I have lived to see such 
a thing as a railroad in China!" The following 
morning he and his young companion went ashore 
with their traps to the station and boarded a train 
for Tientsin, the port of Peking, forty miles up the 
river. 

During their short stay in Tientsin they visited 
the London Mission Hospital, the scene of Dr. Ken- 
neth Mackenzie's earnest and heroic labours. The 
wards were full of sick and wounded soldiers gath- 
ered from the battlefields of Port Arthur and Wei 
Hai Wei. The travellers were deeply impressed 
with the memorials that they saw of the terrible 
massacre of foreigners in 1870. "I could not leave 
Tientsin," writes Dr. Hart, "without a sight of 
those places where such cruel deeds were done. A 
[292] 



THE APPEAL UNTO CAESAR 

small and severely plain chapel stands on part of 
the site of the Orphanage (Roman Catholic) and 
where the ten heroic sisters fell, defending as only 
loving hearts can their sacred trusts. Each conse- 
crated spot is marked by a single round marble pil- 
lar about four feet high, with the sister's baptismal 
name carved in Roman letters upon it. Two of the 
pillars are in the body of the chapel and eight out- 
side in front and around the building where they 
are claimed to have fallen. This sacred place, re- 
moved but a stone's throw from a noisy street and 
entirely shut in from view by walls, was the scene of 
more brutal violence than ever disgraced Chinese 
annals. As I went from pillar to pillar and stood 
reading the names of the martyred sisters, my heart 
was strangely touched, and I could not but feel 
that these small white monuments would be elo- 
quent sermons to unborn generations and an ever- 
lasting testimony against heathen barbarity and the 
strange ingratitude of the Chinese people." 

Through the kindness of Mr. Pethick, the private 
secretary of Li Hung Chang, whom Dr. Hart knew 
in Foochow many years before, the two mission- 
aries had the rare opportunity while in Tientsin of 
an informal interview with that greatest of modern 
Chinamen. While they were in the secretary's office 
in the Viceroy's Yamen, Li was announced. He 
came forward and shook hands with each of the 

[293] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



gentlemen in true Western fashion, and after invit- 
ing them to sit down, entered into an hour's con- 
versation with them. The conversation naturally 
turned to the riots in Chengtu and Dr. Hart's mis- 
sion to Peking. "He was anxious to settle the mat- 
ter upon the spot," states the doctor, "and said that 
he could do it by telegraph. He assured me that 
the Hunan man — Chen — who issued the famous 
proclamation on the second day of the riots, should 
be punished and we should go back in safety, pro- 
vided we would waive our indemnity. He spoke 
most bitterly of the Roman Catholics and charged 
them with having made money out of the riots. 'Ad- 
mitting it to be so,' I replied, 'the Chinese are to 
blame for the rioting.' 'Well,' he said, 'don't take 
any indemnity and I will guarantee you shall never 
be mobbed and looted again; hereafter there shall 
not be any more destruction of property.' I said to 
him, 'These riots have been going on for thirty or 
forty years and you do not stop them. We ask 
nothing but a righteous reparation, and do not want 
more than will reconstruct our property.' He still 
charged us, but more particularly the Roman Cath- 
olics, with demanding more than a full compensa- 
tion. I asked His Excellency what he would do if 
bad people destroyed his house and property, would 
he ask compensation'? He answered, 'No!' Of 
course he need not, for he could get his compensation 

l>94j 



THE APPEAL UNTO C1SAR 

without asking. He would seize it I He urged me 
to tell him all I knew about Liu, the Viceroy of 
Szechwan. Did I know anything bad about him*? 
I answered, 'Not personally. 5 He then pressed me 
so hard that I said, 'He has the reputation of being 
a very avaricious man.' The Viceroy denied this, 
and said, 'No, he is not.' Then I stated that Liu 
had the reputation of being a hater of foreigners, 
but he answered, 'No, but you may say that he does 
not like them.' I could have told more, but I knew 
well that he was better acquainted with his villainy 
than I. We had to examine his face, or rather Dr. 
Hare did, and give him some assurance that he 
would not suffer from the encased bullet (which he 
had received from a would-be assassin in Japan). 
Poor old man ! walking in darkness, tottering to the 
grave, a prejudiced heathen ! 

"We were shown over the vice-regal palace and 
looked upon the fine gifts of the Emperor and Em- 
press Dowager which have come to him from time 
to time. I had seen and talked face to face with the 
hero of Taiping days, the queller of riots in Sze- 
chwan a score of years ago, the most eminent gen- 
eral, the wiliest diplomat China has ever produced, 
a viceroy that in peace and war, in calm and temp- 
est, in honour and dishonour, has played his cards 
for all they were worth. Hateful foes are now 
hounding him to the grave and but few friends rise 

[295] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



to bolster the tottering giant. The Empress Dowager, 
however, through thick and thin, swears by him 
and longs with itching palms for the substantial 
proofs of his gratitude, which have been lavished 
upon her as seldom from subject to ruler." 

From Tientsin to Peking is anywhere from seven- 
ty-five to one hundred and thirty-five miles — all de- 
pends upon which route one selects, the water or 
the land ! There are three popular modes of trans- 
portation in vogue — house-boat, cart and saddle. 
Though Dr. Hart's inclinations were to select a 
cart, as a new experience, he was wisely persuaded 
by his missionary friends in Tientsin to take a boat. 
The scenery along the river he found most uninter- 
esting and monotonous. The country was flat and 
almost leafless. Mud was everywhere — mud-houses, 
mud-shops, muddy roads, muddy clothes. Never did 
he see so much mud. And yet this little Peiho River, 
the muddiest and crookedest stream on the planet, 
is one of greatest historic interest. The Thames, the 
Spree, the Seine, the Tagus, even the Tiber, are but 
of yesterday compared with it. Dr. Hart thought 
of this as he sat in his stifling cabin and looked out 
of the windows upon the cheerless landscape. 
"Think of the pleasure barges that have gone up 
and down this river; of emperors and empresses, 
princes and dukes, away back — no one knows how 
far. Think of the armies that have been marshalled 

[296] 



THE APPEAL UNTO CAESAR 

upon its banks, of battles fought, of the tragic events 
of plottings and conspiracies to overthrow hated rul- 
ers. Think of the numberless scholars who have 
come to compete at Peking for academic honours and 
the few who have returned bearing chaplets ! While 
I muse upon the great past my heart grows strangely 
tender towards this little stream." 

At Tung Chao, fourteen miles from the Capital, 
our missionaries left the house-boat and proceeded 
upon donkeys, their baggage following in a cart, 
which travelled at the rate of a mile and a half an 
hour. Such roads ! They had heard that they were 
bad, but the half had never been told. Both riders 
and baggage suffered severely from the concussions 
— jolts is too mild a word — which they received by 
dropping into the myriads of holes and ruts which 
marked the way to Peking. The ride was a memor- 
able, but most undignified one. Dr. Hart did not 
feel like a special Commissioner to the Imperial City 
as he sat upon his little, lean, razor-back, stubborn 
beast, with his knees half-drawn up to his chin. 
The donkey had a mind of its own and at times on 
the journey was uncontrollable. In entering the city 
where the streets were at all good he would rush 
along at a fearful speed, keeping his rider busy dodg- 
ing sign boards, meat hooks and other menacing 
things that hung suspended from the shops ; he would 
plunge straight into a crowd, upsetting any one 

[297] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and anything that came in his way. His venerable 
rider remarks, "I could no more guide that diminu- 
tive beast than Perseus could the winged Pegasus 
when he took the bit and flew towards the haunts of 
the Gorgons." 

Dr. Hart's visit to Peking was a short one. He 
was there for only one week and as he had to confer 
with several important dignitaries, he could give but 
little time to sight-seeing. 

At eleven o'clock on the day following his arrival, 
by special appointment, he called upon the most in- 
fluential foreigner in China, Sir Robert Hart, the 
Inspector General of the Imperial Maritime Cus- 
toms. For forty-one years this Irishman had been 
in the confidence of the Chinese Government and 
had won a world-wide reputation for the services 
which he had rendered the Empire. No man could 
have held a trust of such magnitude so long, and sat- 
isfied a government so whimsical as the Chinese, 
unless he possessed extraordinary powers. It must 
have been very galling to capable and ambitious 
Chinamen to have one of the hated and despised 
foreign race employed by their government in the 
organisation and control of so important a branch 
of the public service as the Customs. There are no 
better financiers in the world, as individuals, than 
the Chinese, but they have seldom proved themselves 
adept in managing great public affairs. They may 

[298] 



THE APPEAL UNTO CiESAR 

have the ability, but they as a rule succumb too read- 
ily to the tempter. 

Dr. Hart was quick to notice in his interview with 
Sir Robert how a long sojourn in China and a close 
identification with the people had practically dena- 
tionalised him. He had become in reality a China- 
man in thought and feeling. After discussing the 
matter of opening a few new ports in West China, 
the conversation drifted to Christian missions. Sir 
Robert strongly hinted that the presence of mission- 
aries was most undesirable on the part of the Chi- 
nese ; that they were disturbing elements, and that in 
the Confucian classics the people had all they needed. 
Dr. Hart referred him to the gross ignorance and 
deplorable degradation of all classes, and the corrup- 
tion of the official class in particular, and that while 
they had a good system of ethics, its hold upon the 
people was gone ; that the Roman Empire at its worst 
was no worse than China at present. Sir Robert 
finally and frankly admitted the truth of the state- 
ment. 

In the afternoon of the same day Dr. Hart pre- 
sented his card at the imposing gateway of the Brit- 
ish Legation. In a few minutes he had met Sir 
Nicholas O' Conor, the British Minister, and had 
handed him the document prepared by the mission- 
aries at Chungking. The minister agreed most fully 

[299] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



with the demands made, but felt that some of the 
points should not be pressed at that time. 

After the interview Sir Nicholas showed Dr. Hart 
and Dr. Hare over the extensive legation grounds. 
The residence is one of those old ducal palaces for 
which Peking is famous, and is a magnificent speci- 
men of Chinese art. The reception and dining rooms 
with their frescoes and wood carvings are by far 
the finest in all China. Indeed few palaces in Eu- 
rope can boast of more sumptuous apartments. 

Before returning to Shanghai, Dr. Hart must see 
his old friend, the popular American Minister, the 
Honourable Colonel Charles Denby. He discovered 
that the Colonel was holidaying in his summer home 
among the hills some miles west of the Capital, but 
an invitation had been left for him to come out and 
stay as long as he could make it convenient. The 
generous invitation was accepted, though it meant 
another long and distressing ride upon a Peking 
donkey. Two days were pleasantly passed in the 
Minister's retreat, reviving old memories, when the 
two had travelled many a mile together in Central 
China, and in canvassing the vexed situation in 
Szechwan. Colonel Denby did not seem very hope- 
ful of securing much beyond a money indemnity, 
but assured his missionary friend that he would leave 
no stone unturned to bring China to her senses and 
[300] 



THE APPEAL UNTO CAESAR 

secure prompt and adequate measures of redress and 
reform. 

Sir Harry Parkes, who for many years was the 
British Minister to Peking, used to say that when he 
came back to the Capital it was returning to the 
three D's— "Dirt! Dust! and Disdain!" Dr. Hart, 
after a week's residence, fully accepted Sir Harry's 
characterisation of the city, but felt that he could 
have added a few more D's to the list. This was 
his parting shot: "My opinion is that Peking, while 
the capital of a mighty empire and possessing many 
objects of interest, is the most corrupt, most filthy 
and most unenlightened city in the world. It is des- 
titute of any claims to represent a civilised people. 
Its streets, houses, shops and general conveniences 
are no better than ten centuries ago. It is without 
waterworks, without sewers, without proper light- 
ing, without police, without a properly paved street 
and without shame." 

The result of the demands of the missionaries and 
other foreign residents of China, the consuls and 
the various foreign Ministers at Peking, was the deg- 
radation of Liu-Ping-Chang, the notorious Viceroy of 
Szechwan; the degradation and dismissal of all the 
other guilty officials; the full recognition of the 
status of the missionaries in the province, and the 
payment of a sufficient money indemnity for all 

[3oi] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



losses — no small proportion of which the ex-viceroy 
was compelled to pay out of his own pocket. 

At the time the Imperial Edict was issued an- 
nouncing the compensations which the missionaries 
were to receive and fixing the responsibility for all 
the troubles upon the officials of Szechwan, Dr. 
Hart wrote these words to the Canadian Methodist 
Missionary authorities : 

"I believe the very pillars of iniquity which have 
held up this tottering fabric which we call, 'The 
Imperial Government' are about to be pulled down. 
We must and are to have a new China. I feel thank- 
ful to live to see this day and somehow feel that we 
have done our best year's work in 1895." 



[302J 



XXIV 
THE WORK RESUMED 



XXIV 



THE WORK RESUMED 



FOR several months following the riots the prov- 
inces bordering upon the Yangtse, as well as 
one or two by the sea, were in a more or less dis- 
turbed state. In some provinces rebellions had 
broken out and Imperial troops were busy in trying 
to put them down. At Kucheng, near Foochow, ten 
missionaries had been massacred and a commission 
had been appointed to investigate the matter. A 
British fleet of warships was lying off Wusung, a few 
miles from Shanghai, ready for emergencies. Brit- 
ish and other gunboats had gone up the Yangtse and 
were now anchored off the various treaty ports pre- 
pared to shell the native cities if the foreign residents 
were molested. The outlook for missionary work 
was far from promising. 

Our West China missionaries were, like the coun- 
try, most unsettled too. One or two went to Japan ; 
Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson and Mrs. Hartwell, whose 

[305] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



nerves had been badly shaken by the experiences 
through which they had passed, decided to return 
to Canada; the others remained in Shanghai. 

Early in November, tired of inaction and anxious 
to test the feeling of the people, Dr. Hart and Mr. 
Hartwell set out for Szechwan. They were pre- 
ceded by a commission of three gentlemen sent by 
the American Government to Chengtu to settle the 
amount of indemnity to be paid American citizens 
for their losses and to insist upon the punishment of 
all guilty officials. 

When the missionaries reached Chungking, a petty 
officer boarded the boat and presented Dr. Hart with 
the card of the Chief Magistrate of the city. Ac- 
companying the card was a present of two chickens, 
two doves and two plates of cakes. This was the 
conventional intimation that a personal visit would 
soon follow. The next morning the magistrate 
called and had a long conference with the doctor. 
He was a jolly old fellow and every time the doctor 
said anything that pleased him he would jump up 
from his chair and in a most animated way shake 
him by the hand. But the magistrate was as wily 
as he was jolly. He was particularly anxious that 
Dr. Hart should not go to Chengtu until the Ameri- 
can Commission had left. But the experienced mis- 
sionary quickly saw through his plea. He was afraid 
that his presence there and his intimate knowledge 

[306] 



THE WORK RESUMED 

of affairs might strengthen the hands of the com- 
mission and be very embarrassing to the officials. 

In leaving Chungking Dr. Hart notified the Chief 
Magistrate of Chengtu that he was coming overland 
and asked that suitable accommodation be provided 
for him and Mr. Hartwell. The magistrate was ex- 
ceedingly obliging. He ordered an escort of six 
soldiers to meet the missionaries and to accompany 
them to the city, and rented a commodious dwelling 
near their old property, where they might reside until 
their own houses had been rebuilt. When they ar- 
rived in Chengtu they found the magistrate awaiting 
them in their temporary quarters "all wreathed in 
smiles," having made every provision for their com- 
fort. 

In visiting the ruins of their old buildings they 
discovered some very interesting and significant 
drawings upon what remained of the walls of the 
chapel. One of the drawings depicted a ferocious 
man with a very long arm thrashing a sad-looking 
Chinese boy. Under it were these words : "This is 
the way foreigners beat their children." Another 
drawing was entitled, "The boy and the box in the 
blood room." On one of the walls, in large char- 
acters, appeared the sentence, "Here is the hall that 
met a righteous retribution from Heaven's wrath." 

But though these drawings very clearly indicated 
the conceptions and feelings of the populace towards 

[307] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



the missionaries at the time of the riots, they by no 
means indicated their attitude towards them when 
they returned. Seven months had wrought a great 
change. In a letter to the Editor of the Christian 
Guardian, Dr. Hart says: 

"We have mingled freely with the people on the 
streets and on the parade ground and have received 
the best of treatment. This morning Mr. Hartwell 
and I walked back and forth upon the parade ground 
while about two thousand soldiers were going 
through their evolutions. The onlookers were many. 
We stopped and conversed with the soldiers and peo- 
ple and did not hear an offensive word or observe 
an act that indicated anything but goodwill. The 
degradation of the Viceroy and the punishment of 
the other officials have worked wonders for our 
cause. The simple fact that we can secure property 
for our missions, using the words 'buy' and l selV — 
which has never been the custom before and that 
we are not limited to certain districts for purposes 
of residence, gives us a far different standing in the 
eyes of the people. Our hearts are full of praise to 
God who has done by the wrath and cunning of our 
enemies more for His cause than our preaching, 
schools and hospitals could have done for decades." 

One of the local causes contributing to this happy 
result was the loyalty and the testimony of the 
scholars of the mission day schools. The scholars 
were living witnesses to the falsity of the cruel 

[308] 



THE WORK RESUMED 

rumours that had been circulated by the Chengtu 
officials. When the excitement of the riots had 
subsided, these boys and girls were visited by many 
of the better disposed citizens and they were closely 
questioned about the life, methods and teachings of 
the missionaries. Without a single exception these 
scholars stood faithfully by their teachers and helped 
to open the eyes of the people to the deceptions that 
had been practised upon them by their unscrupulous 
officials. Joined by their parents many of these 
scholars walked miles out of the city to welcome 
the returning missionaries, their faces aglow with 
the joy of seeing them again. 

After a few busy weeks in Chengtu in settling 
claims, buying a new property and starting the work 
of rebuilding, Dr. Hart left for Kiating, where he 
spent several days in repairing the damaged mis- 
sion premises and in notifying the authorities and 
the people that the missionaries were about to return 
and resume their work. 

But the strain of the past few years — especially 
the last one — had been too much for the veteran 
missionary and broken in health through malaria 
he left for home in February, 1896. A year's rest 
did him a world of good and he was again ready for 
his field in China. On the thirteenth day of Febru- 
ary, 1897, he, with his wife and daughter, sailed 
from San Francisco. Upon their arrival in Yoko- 

[309] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



hama they were met by Dr. Hare, to whom Miss 
Hart was married on the following day. Three 
delightful and altogether too short days were passed 
in the home of Dr. Edgerton Hart at Wuhu, when 
the party proceeded up the Yangtse, reaching Kiat- 
ing on the twenty-seventh day of May. 

As Dr. Hart's house had suffered considerably at 
the hands of the rioters it was some time before it 
could be made habitable. Not a door nor a window 
had been left in the place. For several days, until 
new doors and windows could be made, blankets 
were hung up. "We were like people living in a 
bird cage," writes Mrs. Hart to one of her sons. If 
this good lady was not charmed with her house she 
was with the grounds that surrounded it. At the 
back of the place rose a high rock covered with small 
shrubs, ferns and banana plants. "I never tire," 
she continues, "of looking at this lovely view about 
twenty feet from our dining-room window. We 
have steps up this rock and at the top one gets a 
view of the river and two large islands; rafts and 
boats of all sizes are going and coming. We reach 
the wall of the city — only a short distance away — 
by this same flight of steps. The outlook from the 
wall is charming. Hill after hill appears, covered 
with shrubs and flowers and vegetation of all kinds 
— and then beyond is Omei with its lofty range of 



[3io] 



THE WORK RESUMED 

There is nothing that the foreigner, living in the 
hot cities of China, longs for more than a good drink 
of cold water. Good drinking water is hard to ob- 
tain — hence the universal tea habit. Dr. Hart en- 
deavoured to solve the problem in his compound at 
Kiating by attempting to dig a well just at the 
foot of the big, red sand-stone cliff or rock, already 
referred to, at the back of the property. The work- 
men had not gone down more than seven feet when 
they came upon a cave, entering the perpendicular 
cliff at right angles — made by the Mantzs, the orig- 
inal inhabitants of the country. "As soon as we 
could get into it," says Dr. Hart, "we took torches 
and penetrated the long lost cave where human 
beings dwelt probably two thousand years ago. The 
cave is eight feet high, about the same in width, and 
sixty feet deep, straight into the solid rock. It is 
beautifully chiselled and at the farther end is a fire- 
place with two furnace holes for cooking food. Along 
the sides of the cave are old stone cisterns for water 
and a niche or two for sleepers. We found the cave 
very cold and rather damp. We are going to make 
use of it as a dry well for cooling drinks and food. 
There are thousands of these ancient caves in and 
around the city, but I have never seen one quite so 
deep as this one." 

On returning to West China Dr. Hart found all 
the missionaries back at their posts with the excep- 

[311] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



tion of Dr. and Mrs. Stevenson, who had resigned 
from the mission. During his absence seven or eight 
new buildings had risen from the ruins of the old, 
among which were a fine brick church in Chengtu 
seating over four hundred people and a neat little 
chapel in Kiating. One of his first duties upon his 
return was to dedicate the Kiating chapel and bap- 
tise the first convert of the mission. 

In founding the West China Mission Dr. Hart 
soon felt the need of the printing press. In an ad- 
dress at a missionary conference in Victoria College, 
Toronto, some years after, he said, "I felt the neces- 
sity of it to meet the wants of both missionaries and 
Chinese. It is quite a serious undertaking to bring 
literature up from Shanghai. Nearly one-third of the 
books sent westward have been lost on the way. And 
we need books. From the time when Morrison and 
others laid hold on the press to convey their thoughts 
to the Chinese, what a world of good has been done ! 
The Chinese are a literary people, and it seems to 
me that when they read and gather and love books, 
that there can be no better way of influencing them 
than through the medium of the printed page." In 
one of his first communications home after opening 
the work in Chengtu, he says, "I am very much con- 
vinced that the best religious work that can be done 
for Szechwan for a few years to come is that of a 
good weekly paper to be sold say for two or three 
[312] 



THE WORK RESUMED 



cash a copy, giving the people some knowledge of 
our purposes and of the world in general. Light is 
what they need. Their ignorance is so dense that 
they cannot comprehend our motives." 

Before leaving Canada in 1897, Dr. Hart made 
a tour of the churches and in his addresses he always 
put in a special plea for a mission press. Through 
private subscriptions he collected fifteen hundred 
dollars by which he was enabled to take back with 
him two presses, a Gordon treadle, and a lever hand- 
press, together with a limited quantity of Chinese 
type, which he purchased in Shanghai. What a 
time he had in Ichang in packing these presses into 
a junk for transportation up the river! They were 
as the apple of his eye and the cause of much solici- 
tude as they passed through the perils of the rapids. 
These two little presses were the first to be used in 
China west of Hankow. They were put into com- 
mission in Kiating where a new brick building was 
erected to house them. Dr. Hart says, "We began 
our work with one man to print all our books for 
fifty millions of people — and this man was a for- 
eigner. We went on slowly and the day we printed 
our first tract I saw his eyes sparkle with joy. This 
tract was entitled, 'Words Exhorting the World to 
Good Deeds,' and we sold it for one cash. From 
this beginning we went on to larger work, such as 
the printing of the Gospels. After one year, when 

[313] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



we had printed one hundred and fifty thousand 
copies of books, I put on two more men. The next 
year we put on six or seven more men. We now have 
sixteen young men in our employ, and in one year 
we printed three millions one hundred thousand 
pages of literature. 

"A short time ago our General Secretary said 
to me that he hoped I would live long enough to 
make this press work in China self-supporting. So 
far as paying its own way is concerned, it is that 
now. From the time that we collected our first 
money and paid for our press this enterprise has been 
entirely self-supporting. Not only so, but we have 
made money. And we can make more. I fully 
expect that when we have five or six presses at work 
we shall not only pay the missionary in charge, but 
establish a fund for the carrying on of mission work 
in China. Last year we could not begin to fill our 
orders. The American Bible Society alone demanded 
one press all the time to print Gospels and the Acts 
and we ran off seventy-five thousand volumes for 
them. The British and Foreign Bible Society are 
anxious to have us print a large edition for them, but 
we are unable to do so with the presses we have. 
It costs from twenty to thirty per cent, less to print 
these books in Chengtu than it does to have them 
sent in. The price of paper is reasonable and labour 
is cheap. We have adopted the following scale of 

[3H] 




DR. HART OPERATING HIS PRINTING PRESS 

THE FIRST TO BE USED IN CHINA WEST OF HANKOW 




THE PRESS BUILDING AT KIATING 



THE WORK RESUMED 



wages for our printers and the allowance is a gen- 
erous one for Chinese labour. First year, one dollar 
and twenty-five cents per month; second year, two 
dollars per month ; third year, two dollars and a half 
per month. The highest amount they will ever get 
is three dollars and twenty-five cents per month, and 
they are happy men, when they receive that — and 
they all feed themselves out of the wages they re- 
ceive ! 

"There are no newspapers in Chengtu and even 
a small bi-monthly paper would be a good thing. It 
would need a foreigner at its head, but if he were 
the right man it could be made a great success. The 
news supply could be furnished by telegraph (which 
now comes into Chengtu), and by extracts from 
daily and weekly papers which reach us from the 
coast. News even three months old would seem 
fresh to people who could not get anything fresher. 
And the Chinese are not the only ones behind the 
times. There are people in Toronto who did not 
appear to know that we had a press in West China 
until to-day. 

"I have great faith in this work of the press — 
more faith than I have in any other kind of work I 
ever undertook. By means of it we can spread God's 
Word everywhere. It is reaching far out now, and 
the time is coming when we shall be printing litera- 
ture for Thibet and sending the Word of Life up 

[315] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



into those dark provinces where for so long the Em- 
press Dowager has been sowing the seeds of death." 
Dr. Hart's faith in the power of the printed page 
among the millions of West China has been more 
than justified. The two little presses that he took 
up the river in 1897 are now a dozen; the little brick 
building in Kiating has become a fine large plant 
with modern equipment, having a total output each 
year of over thirty-five million pages, printed in four 
or more languages, employing four or five foreign 
heads of departments and a native staff of over 
sixty. There is no branch of the work of the Cana- 
dian Methodist Church that is so successful and 
far-reaching in its influence as the presswork. 



[316] 



XXV 

A VISIT TO AN OUTSTATION 



XXV 



A VISIT TO AN OUTSTATION 



DURING the growing years that followed the 
return of the Canadian missionaries in Sze- 
chwan several new outstations were established in 
the neighbourhood of Chengtu and Kiating. One 
of the first to be opened was Omei Hsien, a day's 
journey from Kiating. Dr. Hart, in a breezy arti- 
cle, tells of a short trip which he and his wife made 
to this new outstation and to an ancient monastery 
a few miles beyond, among the mountains. 

"Come with me to our new outstation at Omei, 
a quiet city nestling in a fertile plain near the foot- 
hills of the great Mount Omei. The mountain now 
wears her winter robes, and streams of snow water 
rush along the deep street gutters, to find the paddy 
fields far beyond the city walls. 

"There are not many lands where the people 
would make more use of such tiny streams. The 
ducks and geese swim in them; the little urchins 

[319] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



wade in them and sail their toy boats; turnips and 
cabbages are washed in them; buckets of filth are 
emptied into them; clothes are washed in them; and, 
lastly, coolies every hour dip their pails in them 
and carry the refreshing contents to the tea shops 
and homes to brew fragrant tea and steam rice. 

"Mrs. Hart and I, after a twenty-five miles' ride 
in sedan chairs, entered the East Gate just before 
nightfall and took lodgings in our newly rented 
house upon the main street, in the rear of a fashion- 
able tea shop. Our courtyard was not the pink of 
neatness, nor as sweet-smelling as a clover patch. A 
cold wind circulated freely through the roof and 
walls of our house. It is wonderful what white- 
wash and red paint will do for an old, tumble-down 
Chinese dwelling! We had the evidence before us 
and were happy. A charcoal fire was quickly made, 
a good meal was soon spread out upon our own 
washed table, and two happy people feasted in the 
heart of the city, unknown by the thousands about 
them. 

"The next day was 'market day' — always a gay 
day in West China. Every city and town is sup- 
posed to have a public market from ten to fifteen 
times each month, and as the cities and towns are 
not far apart, the people have exceptional opportuni- 
ties to dispose of everything the earth grows and 
the hand of man manufactures. About nine o'clock 
[32o] 



A VISIT TO AN OUTSTATION 

the peasants from hills and vales and mountain 
heights come in groups toward the city gates, and 
by eleven o'clock nearly every important street has 
become a veritable bazaar. The din of myriad voices 
rises over the city and is heard half a mile beyond 
the city gates. Every commodity known to this dis- 
trict, and some new and fantastic articles from be- 
yond the seas, are arranged on either side of the 
street. Here an old woman sits by a basket of fresh 
eggs, brought with much pride from her home in the 
hills, five miles away. Yonder a sturdy lass holds 
a squeaking black pig with a straw rope and finds 
her charge a lively one until a purchaser drags the 
squealing nuisance away, pulled, punched and kicked 
out of half a month's growth. 

"This is just the time to sell books and rub shoul- 
ders with the people, and no one has enjoyed the 
delights of missionary work unless he has pushed 
his way through a large town or city with his hands 
full of books and tracts, and run over half a dozen 
pigs, chickens and waddling babies, and received a 
hundred inward imprecations from old women, as 
the cause of unseemly hubbubs. 

"The day was cold and misty, but the cold and 
the mist did not interfere with business. About ten 
o'clock the hum of voices was heard, and a little 
later I sallied forth with our cook for a canvass of 
the city. With illustrated calendars, in two colours, 

[321] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and tracts in abundance, we walked leisurely through 
the crowds, holding up our precious merchandise and 
calling to every one near and far to purchase. Talk- 
ing here to a group of farmers, much to their amuse- 
ment, and there explaining calendars and tracts to 
shopmen. Some one purchases and then a dozen 
conclude to venture, and my hands are all thumbs 
as the buyers multiply. One hand is filled to the 
uttermost with tracts, the other must select and give 
out the ones sold and receive the brass coins, and 
deposit them in my coat pocket and defend my cal- 
endars from assaults in the rear and sides, for well- 
behaved Chinamen are not above taking considerable 
liberties with things which do not exactly belong to 
them. After two hours of this kind of work, with 
one side of my person weighted down with brass, I 
struggle back to my lodgings hungry and weary. 

"The following day there was a market at Tsin 
Lung Chang, ten miles away, and both Mrs. Hart 
and I went. I cannot attempt anything like a de- 
scription of the lovely views we caught of the won- 
derful mountain as we wended our way over streams, 
by mighty banyans, through villages and past an- 
cient temples, ever looking up to the snowy peaks 
and rugged gorges. We had a good reception by 
the multitudes, and books were in great demand, and 
notwithstanding the streets were wet, and my feet 
damp and cold, my part of the market was so lively 
[322] 




MARKET DAY 



A VISIT TO AN OUTSTATION 

that such small troubles were soon forgotten. Every- 
body was happy, and when I stood between the 
sedan poles, and ate my lunch as it was handed to 
me by my faithful partner, the enthusiasm mani- 
fested was something extraordinary. Lunch over, I 
left Mrs. Hart again, and did a big business before 
it was time to retrace our steps. 

"The next day we journeyed forty li, or thirteen 
miles, to Ta-Ngo-Sz, an ancient monastery, twenty- 
five hundred feet up the side of the mountain. My 
wife had a sedan chair, but she had to walk so much 
of the way up that she declared she would make the 
whole journey next time on foot, and take two days 
for the ascent. I half surmise the coolies will be 
just as well pleased, for I might as well say it now 
as some other time, they declared she weighed 
three hundred catties, which in plain English weight 
is three hundred and seventy-five pounds. It was a 
libel, of course, but then she is pretty heavy. 

"We took the old abbot — whom I had met before 
— by surprise, but his beaming face declared plainly 
enough, 'You are welcome!' We made ourselves 
at home by taking the whole west end of the great 
temple. The old gentleman, who boasts the mature 
age of sixty-nine years, prostrated himself before 
us both, first to myself and then to my wife. With 
thumbs spread wide and outstretched arms, he fell 
upon his knees, his silk robes, lined with fur, all in 

[323] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



a heap, and bowed his mitred head at our feet. 
I found it rather hard on my part to be so humble 
for both of us. However, I bowed pretty low. 

"This ceremony over, the abbot ordered the hum- 
bler fraternity to bring in the great brazier, for it 
was cold, and make up the bed, insisting that we 
should have mosquito curtains. Of mosquitos there 
had not one hummed to the smoking incense for half 
a year. Hot water, in a tiny brass pitcher, just 
enough for one cup of tea, was brought by the serving 
abbot. After wiping the cups with his sleeve, he 
pulled out a package from his bosom, from which, 
when unrolled, dropped two wads of Yun Nan 
coarse tea. With one wad he made me a cup of 
yellow liquid, then he proceeded to do the hospitable 
thing for Mrs. Hart. Her wad, by accident, fell 
into the ashes, but the old man was courtesy itself 
and wiped it well with his withered hand and an old 
rag which had seen much service. I sipped my cup 
with great gusto and with sufficient noise that both 
he and Mrs. Hart could hear, giving a side glance to 
her to see how she liked the mixture he was now pre- 
paring for her. Hers was well brewed, and with 
great politeness handed to her by the grand old man. 
He went out just then, and to my chagrin Mrs. Hart 
deliberately poured out that choice cup of tea into 
the ashes. Women are so queer and finical ! 

"We stopped for two days and enjoyed the ab- 

[324] 



A VISIT TO AN OUTSTATION 

bot's hospitality. He lives a very quiet life, sur- 
rounded by a few young priests and novitiates. In 
addition to serving the gods and waiting upon the 
worshippers, who come from all parts of the empire 
and even from Japan and Korea, the abbot is a 
doctor. At the temple door he has a cupboard with 
ten drawers all filled with different herbs, barks, 
roots, clays and curious mixtures. One morning 
while we were there a mountain woman brought 
her daughter for treatment. 'What's the matter with 
you*?' he asked the girl. 'I have a pain, 5 she replied. 
'Yes, I know, but where is it'?' 'In my head and 
stomach, sir.' 'How long*?' he asked. And when 
the mother told him, he quickly said, 'Ah, ague!' 
In a few minutes he had prepared for the sick girl 
a huge package of ginger, a dozen different herbs, 
with a big lump of white clay thrown in. 

"The old man seemed very anxious for us to make 
our home with him during the hot months, and as 
an inducement he said he would have plenty of 
vegetables in the garden and good corn meal for por- 
ridge. Once or twice he referred to the wonderful 
efficacy of the waters of the bubbling spring near 
the temple, which the priests call spiritual water or 
water of the gods. He claimed that it could prolong 
life and make marvellous cures. He said that if I 
would come every year during the hot season he 
believed that I would live to be a hundred years old, 

[325] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and that he expected to live to be ninety years old 
himself. 'How fine it would be to return to your 
own country at the age of a hundred,' he said. I 
have no doubt the Missionary Society would look 
favourably upon any simple measure that would 
preclude the necessity of a furlough for forty or fifty 
years. It might be worth trying. 

"We had a splendid visit and enjoyed communion 
with nature — the mountains and streams and mam- 
moth trees — and from the temple front one of the 
grandest outlooks to be found in West China. I 
often thought of the Scotchman who spent a few 
minutes of each day before the mountains, unhooded, 
in adoration of nature. 

"By the way, what wonderful memories blind 
men have! As we took lunch in a temple court on 
our ascent, a blind man came in and stood by a pillar. 
Hearing me talk to the waiting priest, he quickly 
asked my name. c Ah!' he said, 'you were at Wan- 
Nien monastery eleven years ago, were you not*?' 
It was so, and the then blind boy now hears my 
voice after such a lapse of time and knows me." 

The old abbot of Mount Omei is still living. His 
face is fearfully wrinkled, his form is bent — but his 
heart is as large and as warm as it ever was. Dear 
old soul ! what a good friend he has been to the mis- 
sionaries ! After this first stay at the monastery Dr. 
and Mrs. Hart visited it several times, once or 

[326] 



A VISIT TO AN OUT STATION 

twice for many weeks when the doctor was suffer- 
ing from prolonged attacks of malaria. The abbot 
has built additional rooms for the accommodation of 
the missionaries who now make it a regular resort 
during the extreme heat of the summer. 



[327] 



XXVI 
TWO EVENTFUL YEARS 



XXVI 



TWO EVENTFUL YEARS 



THE closing year of the nineteenth century and 
the opening one of the twentieth were very 
eventful years in the history of Christian missions 
in West China. In the early part of 1899 eacn °f 
the seven Protestant missionary societies at work 
in the Province of Szechwan sent representatives 
to a conference held in Chungking to consider the 
possibilities of closer federation and co-operation. 
The conference was an unqualified success. It was 
well attended, most enthusiastic and deeply spiritual 
in tone. One of the native Christians who was pres- 
ent, in describing the gathering to Dr. Hart, said: 
"The 'Big Washees' — the Baptists — were there; the 
'Little Washees' — the Episcopalians and Methodists 
— were there, and the 'No Washees at alV — the 
Quakers — were there. Me no understan why dif- 
ferent and yet worship same Jesus." This poor, con- 
fused Chinaman, in those pidgin-English terms, 

[331] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



placed his finger upon the weak spot in the Christian 
propaganda, both in the Orient and the Occident — 
the lack of visible unity. 

The most practical result of the conference was 
the organisation of a standing committee called The 
Advisory Board — a committee whose influence has 
so increased through the years that it has come more 
and more to be recognised as voicing the public 
opinion of the body of West China missionaries. 
The Advisory Board seeks to be a medium for ex- 
change of opinion and consultation upon all matters 
of common interest to the missionaries, so that un- 
necessary over-lapping and duplication of work may 
be avoided and the greatest harmony promoted in 
the relations of the different operating societies. 

One of the first tasks imposed upon the Advisory 
Board was the division of the Province of Szechwan 
into missionary "spheres of influence." The sphere 
assigned to the Canadian Methodist Church was a 
strip of territory running from the centre of the 
province south to the Yangtse and including such 
important centres as Chengtu, Kiating, Tzeliutsing, 
Jenshow and Luchow — the very heart of this empire 
province, and comprising about eight million souls. 

This co-operative missionary effort in Szechwan 
was the first step in a series of union movements 
which has led recently to the adoption by the great 
[332] 



TWO EVENTFUL YEARS 



majority of the foreign and native workers of the 
slogan, "One Protestant Church for West China!" 

In speaking of the inspiration received at the Mis- 
sion Conference held in Chengtu in 1908, when one 
hundred and seventy delegates from the various mis- 
sionary societies met, Dr. George J. Bond says, "The 
keynote of that great meeting was union. Already 
the Advisory Board and the Educational Union had 
brought all the missions together, while four of them 
had come into the plan of even closer union in higher 
educational work. And to-day that ideal dominates 
the thought and markedly influences the relationships 
of the missionaries of West China. It has found 
practical shape in the Union Christian University; 
it has led to proposals for the saving of men and 
money and the provision of better plants and equip- 
ment and maintenance in hospital work by co-oper- 
ation and concentration where possible among all 
missions specially interested therein. Indeed West 
China has set the pace for all the rest of China in 
the sincerity, the sanity and the scope of its union 
in missionary work." 

While in West China the work of the missionary 
was making encouraging and peaceful progress, there 
sprang up in North China a secret native movement 
called, "Ho-Chuan" — the Righteous-Harmony- 
Fists, popularly known as the "Boxers." The 
avowed purpose of this organisation was the exter- 

[333] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



mination of the foreigner and the exaltation of the 
then existing Manchu Dynasty. The recent disas- 
trous and humiliating war with Japan; the appro- 
priation by foreign powers, such as Great Britain, 
Germany, France and Russia, of important and 
strategic points along the coast; the frequent refer- 
ences in the foreign press of the possible partition 
of China; the granting of official status to Roman 
Catholic priests and their intervention in matters of 
law when their converts were concerned; the sweep- 
ing reforms already carried out or contemplated by 
the progressive young Emperor Kwang Su — all these 
had greatly alarmed and incensed the conservative 
classes of the empire and made it easy for the am- 
bitious and unscrupulous Empress Dowager, by a 
clever coup d'etat, to seize the reins of government 
and institute a reign of terror against the reform 
party. Under the new regime reaction became the 
order of the day and things reverted to their former 
condition. 

In such an atmosphere it was not hard for the 
Boxer movement to thrive. Receiving the sympathy 
of the Empress Dowager, encouraged and even aided 
by several northern viceroys, the Boxers' numbers 
increased by leaps and bounds until in 1900, in a 
wild outburst of bigotry and frenzy, they sought by 
the sword the accomplishment of their purposes. 
Over two hundred foreigners — mostly missionaries 

[334] 



TWO EVENTFUL YEARS 



— were massacred, and twelve thousand native Chris- 
tians died as martyrs for their faith. 

Though the Boxer movement was largely confined 
to the northern parts of China, yet its influence was 
more or less felt throughout the Empire. Here and 
there were little sympathetic uprisings and isolated 
cases of persecution which, but for the prompt and 
energetic action of local officials, would have in- 
volved the whole nation. 

Szechwan did not escape the Boxer influence. At 
different times Dr. Hart reported to the Mission 
Rooms at Toronto that while the officials were most 
active in their efforts to maintain order, yet the peo- 
ple were unmistakably restless. Once or twice they 
had gathered in large numbers in the streets of 
Kiating and made anti-foreign demonstrations, but 
no harm had come save to the nerves of the mission- 
aries. The mission work was being affected some- 
what seriously by the spreading of evil reports. 
Patients were becoming afraid to stay in the hos- 
pitals and teachers and servants in the schools and 
homes of the missionaries. The officials requested 
the missionaries to confine their activities to a few 
cities, promising no protection if they went beyond 
these restricted areas. For several months the un- 
certainty was so great that Mrs. Hart had baskets 
packed with food and clothing ready to beat a hasty 
retreat if the necessity arose, and ropes were at 

[335] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



hand to let them down over the city wall to the 
river. Several missions to the south — mostly Roman 
Catholic— had been pillaged and two priests were 
kidnapped by roving bandits and hidden in a mine 
for weeks until ransom was forthcoming. Soldiers 
were stationed for awhile in all the mission com- 
pounds at Chengtu and sentinels watched by the 
gates at Kiating for suspicious characters. The 
gates of the cities were ordered to be closed at dusk 
instead of at ten o'clock as formerly. Large numbers 
of wealthy country people were moving into the cities 
for greater security in case a rebellion should break 
out, and the problem of housing these refugees was 
becoming quite acute. The Prefect of Kiating issued 
a proclamation offering forty taels for the capture 
of any person guilty of spreading evil reports about 
the city. "I was just notified," writes Dr. Hart in 
a letter to Dr. Sutherland, "that a literary man near 
our school premises had been caught by the magis- 
trate for speaking inadvisedly about foreigners and 
threatening our employes with starvation on ac- 
count of their connection with us. As soon as I 
heard the man was making seditious statements to 
excited crowds, I sent my card to the magistrate 
asking for his apprehension. He was apprehended 
yesterday. Several literary men of high standing 
are interceding for his release. They purpose to 

[336] 



TWO EVENTFUL YEARS 

bring him to me, escorted by Yamen runners; that 
he shall ask our forgiveness and knock his head 
upon the ground. He promises to keep his mouth 
shut in the future and the literary men will become 
his bondsmen. Forgiveness in this case may be more 
efficacious than punishment." 

In the face of such discouraging and, at times, 
alarming conditions, our missionaries for many 
months prosecuted their work, not knowing the mo- 
ment when the order might come from the British 
consul for them to leave their fields and proceed 
down the river to a place of greater safety. At last 
one Sunday night in July, 1900, the consular order 
came by special messenger to Dr. Hart, who im- 
mediately sent it on to Chengtu in charge of a trusty 
Chinaman. A few days later, after a tearful fare- 
well with the native Christians, the Kiating mis- 
sionaries joined those from Chengtu and hurried 
down the river, under military escort to the coast. 
The journey, during the intense heat of summer, 
when the thermometer registered one hundred and 
fifteen degrees in the cabin, was a most trying one to 
all the foreigners, but especially was it to the veteran 
Superintendent. For days he lay in his sweltering 
boat prostrated with fever, with wet cloths con- 
stantly being applied to his head, while his faithful 
wife sat by his side fanning him. 

[337] 



VIRGIL C . HART 



As there was no prospect of the missionaries being 
able to resume their work for many months, the ma- 
jority of them stayed in Shanghai, some visited 
Japan, while Dr. Hart, whose health was most pre- 
carious, returned with his wife to Canada. 



[338] 



XXVII 
"WORN OUT" 



XXVII 



WRAPPED in a shawl, with deep lines of suf- 
fering marked upon his thin face — yellow 
with the ravages of fever; his voice weak; his form 
bent and fearfully aged — such was Dr. Hart as he 
sat by the study fire in his home at Burlington one 
spring night in 1901, the poor, frail shadow of his 
former self. At the sight tears sprang into the eyes 
of his eldest son, who had journeyed far to greet 
his returned parents. The contrast to the strong, 
rugged and ruddy man who left Canada five years 
before was startlingly, tragically pathetic. 

His physician in far-off Szechwan had pronounced 
him "China-worn out," and said that he would never 
respond to any treatment given there. His only 
hope was across the sea, in the homeland. The win- 
ter months had been passed amid the flowers and 
fruits of Southern California, but they had brought 
no change for the better, and now he was back 

[341] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



upon his beloved farm. Three times the old place 
had retoned his nerves and renewed his strength and 
sent him back to China a different man. Would it 
— could it do it again 4 ? He never ceased to pray 
that it might. Not once did he give up the hope 
of returning — but his intimate friends knew that his 
missionary career was ended, that his powers of re- 
cuperation which had served him so well in the past, 
were now spent, his health was shattered beyond 
all possibility of repair. 

For nearly three years he lingered close to the 
border line. Once or twice he was able to take a 
journey to see a loved one. Several times he spoke 
briefly at missionary gatherings, where his presence 
as well as his message was a benediction. During 
those long months of waiting nothing so cheered him 
as the letters which he received from his old com- 
rades in the mission field. One letter he called his 
"love letter." It read thus: 

"I am sorry to learn of your ill health and your 
delayed return to China. There has been no one in 
China whom we have so longed to entertain and 
have with us as we have longed for you. The love 
and intimate acquaintance of you that was Mrs. B.'s 
and my pleasure to acquire during our formative 
period of missionary life we shall ever cherish. It 
is no flattery to say that we have never met another 
missionary that came up to the idea we found in 
you. None who has so warm a place in our hearts. 

[342] 



We often speak of you and more often do you come 
into our minds as we pursue our work in this city. 
Praise the Lord we will reach the same place at last 
even if our paths must be so far apart here. We 
seek the same city !" 

Deeply was he touched by a cablegram from 
Bishop Moore of the Methodist Episcopal Church 
of the United States, and by an affectionate letter 
from the Central China missionaries urging him to 
come out and spend his remaining days with them. 
"Ah!" he remarked to his wife as the tears coursed 
down his cheeks, "I am not worthy of so much re- 
gard and affection !" 

The last public address that Dr. Hart made was 
to the students of Victoria University, a few weeks 
before his translation. All present felt that his 
words were a parting trust. The frail, wasted form 
was more eloquent than his speech in its appeal to 
the heroic, and several young men that day were led 
to think of the foreign field as their life's task. On 
the evening of February the twenty-fourth, 1904, he 
was not for God took him. His body rests in beau- 
tiful Mount Pleasant in Toronto, but his spirit — it 
never rests. It is in China and in every one who 
seeks to live and labour for China's redemption. 

Since this memoir was commenced Mrs. Hart, the 
wife of the missionary, has passed within the gates 

[343] 



VIRGIL C. HART 



and joined her "fellow- farer true," in that land 
where long years of cruel separations are not known 
and love is made perfect. She died April the fifth, 
1915, at Clifton Springs in New York State, where 
she had been taking treatment for some months. A 
memorial service was held in the Metropolitan 
Church, Toronto, on the afternoon of April the 
seventh, at which the Rev. Dr. Aikins, the pastor, 
and Rev. Dr. Endicott, for many years an asso- 
ciate of Dr. Hart in West China, paid beautiful 
and touching tributes to her memory. 



[344] 



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